Personally, I think controversy is more interesting than not. The internet keeps proving this over and over again. So if you want to attract more females, KEEP TALKING ABOUT THEM.
Getting offended is one way to get started on a rationalist path because it evokes an emotion. It evokes an inner-conflict. Which can result to greater self-understanding. Offending people is fine. Since it reflects more badly on the offensive person than on the offended person. It might even reflect badly on this community as a whole, but hey, if it gets people to start thinking, what’s so bad? If it gets women to understand something about themselves? What’s so bad?
However I would try to balance it out by ALSO examining men in such a way. There’s a lot of literature on PUA, and it is actively discussed here. Why not just find proven methods for attracting men and discuss them also? In a rationalist fashion, of course. If it offends the men on the site, then… all the better. Men need a wake-up call, too.
The topic of PUA seems to suffer from the Streisand effect around here. Mentioning reasons people shouldn’t talk about it gets people talking about it, as evidenced by this now quite long, and expanding, thread, and most of the previous threads as well.
I deleted my initial comment here since I didn’t want to contribute. Now I’d say to others that non-engagement may be a better strategy.
Rather than non-engagement, I would advise dependency management: if there is a topic we find it difficult to inquire into, switch priorities to observing and discussing why we find it difficult to have the object-level discussion.
I think I can solve the mystery: people keep bringing up PUA because they like thinking and talking about sex and things related to sex.
The only reason it “appears to be relevant” is this weak relationship to dark side epistemology that everyone keeps mentioning. But I haven’t seen a ‘dark side’ discussion, separate from sex, in a long while.
If politics is the mind-killer, then what is an even more fundamental drive?
I believe it was originally brought up in a discussion about instrumental rationality—applying rationality to achieve concrete goals rather than as empty discussion. It was in the same vein as Alicorn’s luminosity sequence (applying rationality to improve life outcomes) as opposed to the more abstract discussions over things like Newcomb’s problem.
If rationality is supposed to be about winning then it should be possible to use rationality to improve outcomes in areas of life that you place value on. Most humans place high value on sex and relationships and so instrumental rationalists will often be interested in applying rationality to improving outcomes in these areas. Do you disagree with some part of that line of reasoning or is it simply the specific approaches of ‘game’ that you disapprove of?
People undoubtedly have difficulty thinking rationally about sex but it does not suffer from many of the same mind-killing problems as politics. Instrumental rationality has very little use in the field of politics, other than obvious things like not voting and avoiding political discussion (unless you enjoy it for its own sake and don’t make the mistake of thinking it actually achieves anything).
The field of sex and relationships is much more amenable to the application or instrumental rationality in that there are things you can reasonably do that can impact your personal outcomes. There is very little most people are in a position to do to change policy. There is a great deal that individuals can do to improve their sex and relationship outcomes.
So do you think we should also share masturbation and fantasizing techniques (self-actualization) instead of continuing to focus solely on interpersonal relations (collective action problems)?
If someone had a novel application of instrumental rationality in these areas that solved a common problem I wouldn’t object to them sharing it, though I have difficulty imagining what that might look like.
I’ve always been more interested in the aspects of this site that focus more on instrumental rationality than in the abstract theorizing. I’m more interested in how to apply rationality to improve life outcomes I care about than in debates about what to do if Omega shows up with his boxes. I’m sick to death of discussions about Omega to be honest but I just don’t bother to read them rather than complaining about people who do want to talk about it.
I think you’re assuming that the things you like will work across a wide range of people.
Speaking as a woman who posts to LW, I’m not especially interested in PUA being discussed here unless there’s some consideration of consent issues. Those consent issues actually have some parallels to FAI problems—who decides whether someone is better off? By what standards?
I would say that the equally offense-laden parallel for PUA would be methods for getting men to commit. I don’t know whether they’ve been as carefully studied as PUA—at a minimum, it’s a harder subject because the cost of experiments is higher.
There’s an optimal level of controversy and offense for individuals (not necessarily the same for interest and for learning), and it probably isn’t the maximal level.
It might even reflect badly on this community as a whole, but hey, if it gets people to start thinking, what’s so bad? If it gets women to understand something about themselves? What’s so bad?
Because PUA comes off as dividing women into hackable systems and not worth hacking. If it’s too accepted, it can make it seem as though talking to you isn’t worth the trouble.
“Talking about women” isn’t enough. How they’re talked about matters.
Speaking as a woman who posts to LW, I’m not especially interested in PUA being discussed here unless there’s some consideration of consent issues.
This is a really interesting point, actually. What is about PUA that makes it more concerning from a consent standpoint than, say, advertising? Both are manipulative, and I see considerable parallels between the two. (I find it hard to believe that the big advertising firms have put less effort into figuring out how to get people to do things than pickup artists have...) Should advertising to someone require their consent? Is there a significant difference between product placement in entertainment media and PUA techniques that are based on normal conversations, as opposed to PUA techniques based on being in a traditional picking-up-dates scenario, which seem more like standard commercials? What does consent even mean in the context of situations like PUA or advertising where the point of the manipulation is to get you to say yes? Is it even possible to require consent to that kind of thing, without just pushing the problem back a level and having the manipulators focus on getting you to give your consent to be advertised/PUA’d to?
You’re considering whether advertising is problematic and/or should be legal without looking at whether people on the receiving end of advertising want it or benefit by it.
If someone wrote in Less Wrong about successful techniques of advertising, and said it must be a good thing because people buy what’s advertised, I don’t think it would go over entirely well.
Even before I’d read Rain’s comment, I was willing to bet that most LWers limit their exposure to advertising—not so much for political reasons or for fear of it, as just that it’s low information repetitive input. I admit I’m generalizing from myself on this one, though it’s worth noting that even the general public tends to avoid tv ads if they can.
One thing that’s clear from the akrasia and luminosity discussions is that not everything in people’s minds can be relied on to make their lives better. It’s reasonable to be concerned about inputs from people who are trying to influence your mind and have specific goals which do not include your welfare.
In the case of PUA, saying that some women like that approach (which is true), or that PUAs mean well (which is neither trustworthy [1] nor relevant) substitutes for a general follow-up on how women who’ve been PUAd perceive the experience later,.
At this stage, advertising may well be less effective than PUA—for most things, it isn’t personally directed. A small story—I know a person who used to sell stuffed dragons, and she said she sold them by finding the little part of the potential customer which wanted one ot the dragons, and (by implication) getting that part of the person to make the decision. She didn’t see any problems with that, but I later met someone who wouldn’t go near that woman’s table because of being afraid of getting talked into buying a dragon she didn’t want all that much.
Even if the sales effort had been more carefully constructed so that anyone who bought a stuffed dragon would not be capable of regretting it, there would be more consent issues, not fewer.
If advertising becomes that effective, I don’t know how this should be addressed legally or philosophically. I do think there are problems.
[1] Some PUAs start from a position of resenting women for turning them down.
I was willing to bet that most LWers limit their exposure to advertising
I don’t think this holds true for me. I am somewhat selective about what advertising I attend to but I don’t in general limit my exposure to it and I sometimes actively seek it out.
I tend to skip over adverts when viewing TV on my PVR because they are of low average quality, high density and are generally interrupting something I was actually interested in. On the other hand I will sometimes watch adverts that catch my attention when skipping through either because they are visually interesting or because they are providing information about something I am interested in.
There are a variety of adverts that I don’t avoid and may actively seek out. These include movie trailers for films I might be interested in watching, adverts that are notable for clever or dramatic visuals and adverts for products I am interested in purchasing. I’m interested in visual media in general and so find both filmed adverts and commercial photography interesting from that standpoint when the quality is high. I have purchased a number of DVD collections that include the advertising works of directors—many of todays most interesting film directors started out in advertising and music videos (which are a form of advertising). I also have photography books that include commercial photography.
In the age of the Internet there is a blurred line between advertising and product information and I’m not uncomfortable reading information in the blurred area, though I prefer clear disclosure of any commercial interests driving the material. I quite happily use a manufacturer’s website as one source of product information for products I am considering purchasing though and I also find that third party reviews can be valuable even when it is disclosed that the product was provided free to the reviewer or that there are other reasons to treat the opinions provided as not entirely unbiased.
In general I find advertising less problematic in terms of bias and manipulation than political speech or much journalism (which is very often just lightly disguised political speech).
In the case of women using beauty-enhancing techniques (high heels, push-up bras, make-up, hairstyling), saying that some men like that in women (which is true), or that women mean well (which is neither trustworthy [1] nor relevant) substitutes for a general follow-up on how men who’ve been allured perceive the experience later.
At this stage, advertising may well be less effective than sexy attire on women—for most things, it isn’t personally directed. …
If advertising becomes that effective, I don’t know how this should be addressed legally or philosophically. I do think there are problems.
[1] Some women start from a position of resenting men for not caring more about their personality.
I’m not sure that many would object to this analogy. It strengthens the case that sharing PUA techniques isn’t an appropriate use of LW, just as sharing beauty-enhancing techniques isn’t.
It seems to me that the situation is pretty simple, for PU artistry as well as for advertising. Most PUA techniques that I’ve seen amount to efforts to persuade using Dark Side Epistemology. Bottom-lining is rampant. For example, with “negging”, the PUA starts with the bottom line “You should feel self-conscious and insecure”, and then seeks only evidence that supports this conclusion.
Such PUA techniques should be discussed like any other Dark Side methods: with a view towards minimizing their use and effectiveness.
I’m not sure that many would object to this analogy. It strengthens the case that sharing PUA techniques isn’t an appropriate use of LW, just as sharing beauty-enhancing techniques isn’t. …
Such PUA techniques should be discussed like any other Dark Side methods: with a view towards minimizing their use and effectiveness.
I think I agree. My opinion is that LW shouldn’t be for PUA/beauty tips or how-to’s. But it would be appropriate to discuss why these methods work, under what conditions you’d want to resist them, and what countermeasures you can take. (And I suspect some don’t even want it to go this far, or want to restrict PUA more than beauty.)
So, IMO it would be appropriate to say, “This beauty/PUA technique exploits the psychological hardware in men/women for the following evolutionary reasons … ”
But it would not be appropriate to say, “Here’s a trick you can use to dupe men/women into obeying you/sleeping with you …”
I meant they would have a different standard for discussing the cognitive bias issues related to beauty (despite the parallel in PUA), not that such discussions have been common.
The massive flamewar this board had which was partially over the PUA issue, compared to the tame discussions of evolutionary psychology that touch on judgments of female beauty.
It’s not that I find it implausible. It is that, other than you bringing it up, I don’t know why I should even be considering that hypothesis.
Can you point to a particular statement about evolutionary psychology referencing female beauty that is analogous to a statement about PUA, but did not provoke analogous offense?
A man and a woman meet in a bar. The man is attracted to her clear complexion and firm breasts, which would have been fertility cues in the ancestral environment, but which in this case result from makeup and a bra. This does not bother the man; he just likes the way she looks.
That example does not work. For one thing, the same paragraph goes on to describe:
The woman is attracted to his confident smile and firm manner, cues to high status, which in the ancestral environment would have signified the ability to provide resources for children.
None of the comments to that post expressed any offense at either of these descriptions, so this illustrates the symmetry you predict does not exist.
Also, neither of these descriptions was advocating that anyone should deliberately trigger these evolved thought processes in others to manipulate them, and thus are missing what people find offensive about PUA.
A good answer to my question should point to three things: a discussion of beauty techniques which provoked no offense, an analogous discussion of PUA, and someone taking offense to the analogous discussion of PUA. By analogous I mean that the elements that made the PUA discussion offensive should correspond to elements in the beauty techniques discussion.
I think it’s time to take a step back here: I stated a suspicion of a bias in one direction with regards to the “male side” and the “female side” of an issue as it appears on this site (and, I’d add, society in general). A suspicion, not something I could document my basis for forming. This is a low standard to meet.
In turn, you raise a reasonable question about why this hypothesis should even be on the radar (i.e. am I maybe privileging a hypothesis)? However, this is a less-than-2-bit claim. Given the topic matter, either there’s a bias in one direction, or in the other, or there’s no bias. Focusing on any one of those doesn’t require a lot of evidence to justify to begin with, so again it’s a low standard to meet.
Furthermore, you seem to arbitrarily give no weight to the fact of a large flamewar on PUA, without a corresponding one of female physical attractiveness. (And, I’d add, no one’s modded you up after your first question, while they’ve modded me up.)
Therefore, your requests on this issue seem out of proportion to the evidence I need to present. This suggests to me there’s a deeper issue going on, which maybe we should be discussing instead. If so, could you tell me what that issue is?
Now, with that said, I will answer your latest question: it’s true that both the male appeal and the female appeal were discussed in the link I gave. And yes, in giving that example, I did need you to fill in a few assumptions to see why it supports my case. So let me explain what conclusions we should draw from that post:
Imagine that EY’s post were a bit different. Let’s say that instead he went to great detail explaining the female attractiveness enhancing techniques, explain why make-up works (it has to do with how the brain interprets images from shadows, light gradient, etc.), why certain gestures work, why certain styling works. Let’s also say that he went into comparable detail about things that the male did to increase his sexual desirability, and why those are effective.
In order to describe something of parallel effectiveness, he would probably need to go into things like: actions that make him appear higher status than her (such as “negs”), and the reason for giving a false (verbal) pretense for retiring to a hotel room.
Do you think that these more educational—and equally educational—descriptions on both sides would provoke equal outrage? If so, I can see why it is unconvincing to you, and why I wouldn’t be able to find similar side-by-side examples to satisfy your standard of evidence.
But we do have a chance to put this to the test. I’ve been reading two books about the human mind which touch on visual processing and why makeup works. If I wrote an article for LW that discussed these issues in such a way that a female reader could use it to (“artificially”) increase her attractiveness, but it didn’t provoke the outrage that PUA-informative posts have provoked, would you count that as evidence in my favor?
I think we both already know what would happen, though.
In turn, you raise a reasonable question about why this hypothesis should even be on the radar (i.e. am I maybe privileging a hypothesis)? However, this is a less-than-2-bit claim. Given the topic matter, either there’s a bias in one direction, or in the other, or there’s no bias. Focusing on any one of those doesn’t require a lot of evidence to justify to begin with, so again it’s a low standard to meet.
I’m not sure that settles it....
“There is an object one foot across in the asteroid belt composed entirely of chocolate cake” is either true or it isn’t—in the sense you used it, that’s only a one-bit claim. So with “this murder was committed by Mortimer Q. Snodgrass, who lives at 128 Ordinary Ln.”
It may be relevant that it takes a lot more than two bits to specify your hypothesis in the first place.
In the “Mortimer Q. Snodgrass” example, Snodgrass is not one
of three or so people that the evidence has not ruled out,
he is one of a vast multitude of people that the evidence
has not ruled out.
Of the three (mutually exclusive, jointly exhaustive)
hypotheses listed by Silas, which do you think corresponds
in likelihood to “someone other than Snodgrass did it”? Or
do you dispute that those form a worthwhile trio of
hypotheses?
Or do you dispute that those form a worthwhile trio of hypotheses?
Indeed, I’m skeptical that there are a ‘male side’ and ‘female side’ to this issue, and that it’s worthwhile to divide it up along gender lines, and that the two cases Silas refers to are analogous to the extent that it would be meaningful to talk about a ‘bias’ towards one as compared to the other. But I’m convinced there’s a high enough probability that my skepticism is unwarranted that I shouldn’t bug people about it at the moment.
I’m familiar with the concept, Thom. Take a guess at why I used this phrasing:
Given the topic matter, either there’s a bias in one direction, or in the other, or there’s no bias
GIven that we already have enough evidence to be discussing the matter, there are only a few options left.
So yes, if we had enough evidence to be considering MQS as the murderer, it would not require additional evidence to justify considering the hypotheses “MQS guilty” and “MQS innocent”.
Perhaps I should have instead disputed whether the ‘topic matter’ was ‘given’. But we’ve already established that my intuitions regarding gender / society / taboo / PUA are vastly different from yours, and that I seem to be atypical, so perhaps my skepticism is unimportant.
Perhaps I should have instead disputed whether the ‘topic matter’ was ‘given’.
Yes, that would have made your point responsive, and have prevented you from falsely accusing me of a basic error. Please exercise caution when someone’s comment initially appears to you to be rather stupid—you may need to look at the context some more.
Wouldn’t you need a supporting example or something, though?
Seriously—let it go. You entered a thread without having read the surrounding discussion closely enough. No big deal, we all goof sometimes. We don’t all try to make it look noble, though.
My impression is that by continuing to reply but dropping the posturing required to maintain decorum and expressing frustration rather than fully engaging in the business of clever re-framing you allow him to look noble at your expense. The unfortunate thing is that the actions required to look noble are usually at odds with actually being noble. To gain social reward, either don’t engage (taking your initial positive impression) or ruthlessly battle for the moral high ground using (and bending) whatever tactics of debate are allowed by your tribe.
But we do have a chance to put this to the test. I’ve been reading two books about the human mind which touch on visual processing and why makeup works. If I wrote an article for LW that discussed these issues in such a way that a female reader could use it to (“artificially”) increase her attractiveness, but it didn’t provoke the outrage that PUA-informative posts have provoked, would you count that as evidence in my favor?
Let’s have a real test, that actually has elements corresponding to the offensive elements of PUA. Write your article to explain how a woman can use beauty enhancement techniques to increase her apparent attractiveness so that she can get men she is not actually interested in to buy her drinks, or do her other favors they incorrectly expect will win her attraction. Advocate that women should actually do this. I predict that this will cause offense. If it does not, that would count as evidence in your favor.
But I already agreed from the beginning that “how-to”s should be off-limits! So that’s not a relevant test.
The question here is whether the cognitive bias issues related to male/female attraction (which could potentially inform someone wanting to increase attraction in others) are disproportionately stigmatized when they talk about female biases (which matches society’s general tendency to let women be overt about effective ways to attact men beyond their natural beauty, but not men to attract women beyond their “natural” status).
People who describe biases in men (how e.g. bras can affect their judgment) do so without being criticized, but the parallel case doesn’t hold for women. Now, do you have any further evidence to dispel this suspicion, or would you prefer to explain to me what’s really motivating your question?
But I already agreed from the beginning that “how-to”s should be off-limits! So that’s not a relevant test.
Fine. Then write an article about PUA that is not a how-to, presenting the biases involved as something women should be aware of when they are approached by men, and see if that is still offensive. The point is to make a real comparison, to hold both sides of this issue, men manipulating women and women manipulating men, to the same standard.
Now, do you have any further evidence to dispel this suspicion, or would you prefer to explain to me what’s really motivating your question?
I am still not convinced there is any evidence for your suspicion. Everything you presented has been an apples and oranges comparison. The only data I have seen about an actually analagous pair of discussions is that no offense was produced in either case.
I consider it rude and a distraction from the object level discussion that you are questioning my motivation.
But I already agreed from the beginning that “how-to”s should be off-limits!
Fine. Then write an article about PUA that is not a how-to, presenting the biases involved as something women should be aware of when they are approached by men, and see if that is still offensive.
I guess I should have said more from the beginning: any detailed article about the bias will be usable as a how-to, by a sufficiently intelligent person. So why bother with the distinction, then? It’s an issue of tone and etiquette. “Men are attracted to X for evolutionary reasons” is preferable to “Use X—your ability to manipulate men will improve”, even though the former is informative about the latter.
So I think that for me to write a sufficiently elaborate article like the one you’ve described will provoke outrage, no matter how refined the tone. And I consider that a proper test, but I reject the constraint that the article have a deliberate focus on “this is evil, here’s how to protect yourself”. Attractiveness in women has effects on men’s minds; must any discussion of make-up be prefaced with “make-up is evil, here’s how to identify a woman’s ‘beauty-invariants’”?
The point is to make a real comparison, to hold both sides of this issue, men manipulating women and women manipulating men, to the same standard.
This just shows me the extent to which the bias I warn about is present in you, and why my allegation seems to bother you so much. “Manipulation” is a really big category, and we need to be talking about which kinds of manipulation are unethical and which aren’t. The use of the term “manipulation” is followed up with an implicit standard of “behavior-altering actions I don’t like”, which are labeled “manipulation”, while the ones you don’t like “aren’t manipulation because I like them”.
Make-up, hairstyles, bras, etc. are forms of manipulation. Why are those acceptable, but not e.g. “negging”? That’s something you have to prove, not just assume.
So when I see you automatically attach all kinds of negative features to bias discussions involving PUA, in order to count that as a fair comparison, that looks to me like you’re trying to sneak in your own arguments by use of definition. And therefore counts as the very evidence of disparate treatment I warned about.
I consider it rude and a distraction from the object level discussion that you are questioning my motivation.
I consider it rude that you ignore my substantiation of that suspicion, and a distraction from the discussion that we should be having, of which my claim that you object to, is just one facet.
Make-up, hairstyles, bras, etc. are forms of manipulation. Why are those acceptable, but not e.g. “negging”?
Because women make no bones telling men they’re wearing make-up, or had their hair styled, but for a PUA to explain that they are using “negs” specifically to deflate a good-looking woman’s ego would ruin the effect.
This is a case of the general hypothesis “manipulation is the use of techniques that wouldn’t work if their targets knew about them”.
An interesting intermediate case is the padded bra: this is deceptive, hence arguably manipulative, and I would predict with some confidence that both women and men would look askance at the practice (and that they’d both consider padded shoulders somewhat lame), while a purely decorative bra is OK.
An interesting intermediate case is the padded bra: this is deceptive, hence arguably manipulative, and I would predict with some confidence that both women and men would look askance at the practice (and that they’d both consider padded shoulders somewhat lame), while a purely decorative bra is OK.
The bra is one of the best inventions of all time. I encourage women (and I suppose males that way inclined) to make use of the technology to whatever extent pleases them or suits their purposes. Even more so if that purpose happens to include attracting me. I note, however, that for the purposes of this data point the supporting influence seems to be more important than the enlarging.
My attitude to all other forms of manipulation is similar. I like people influencing me in a way that is beneficial to me and have a strong aversion to people attempting to influence me in a way that is detrimental to me.
This is a case of the general hypothesis “manipulation is the use of techniques that wouldn’t work if their targets knew about them”.
My hypothesis: manipulation works even when the target knows about them. This applies to negs and most other manipulation effects, particularly those that relate to attraction. Attraction isn’t a conscious choice and conscious awareness of the process makes little difference.
(That downmod wasn’t me; I recognize when my objectivity on a thread for purposes of modding is compromised.)
Because women make no bones telling men they’re wearing make-up, or had their hair styled, but for a PUA to explain that they are using “negs” specifically to deflate a good-looking woman’s ego would ruin the effect.
Well, actually, women will deny or refuse to talk about a lot of these. How many women actually tell men how much makeup they have on? How much “assistance” their bust has gotten? (ETA: I actually remember an ad campaign, possibly still going on, that encouraged women to lie about their age, because of the effectiveness of the makeup. It was actually phrased in terms of “Don’t like about your age—defy it!”, accompanied by a scene with a woman getting away with lying about her age.)
Also, I’m not sure your claim about negging is as obvious as you suspect. For one thing, how do you differentiate it, morally, from any kind of teasing? Or the negging that naturals do automatically without even knowing the term or the psychological dynamics of it?
This is a case of the general hypothesis “manipulation is the use of techniques that wouldn’t work if their targets knew about them”.
An interesting intermediate case …
That’s interesting. But while you’re wringing your hands about this or that practice, the rest of the world has moved passed this debate and doesn’t adhere to any kind of standard code on those issues. And women are still sleeping with, dating, and marrying those who use PUA techniques, whether they come naturally or not. (Maybe that makes them all rape victims? Who knows?)
And these women and men are making more copies of themselves.
Well, actually, women will deny or refuse to talk about a lot of these. How many women actually tell men how much makeup they have on?
This may be a left-over 1950s stereotype, but I was under the impression that men both want a rather artificial appearance from women and despise women for their attention to the details needed to create it. I would be glad to find out that I’m mistaken.
I was under the impression that men both want a rather artificial appearance from women and despise women for their attention to the details needed to create it. I would be glad to find out that I’m mistaken.
I think it’d be more accurate to say that we prefer any makeup to look like the wearer just naturally looks that way, rather than like they made themselves up. (Since awareness of the makeup detracts from the immediate and visceral pleasure we’d otherwise receive from viewing an attractive woman.)
We also dislike it when the time spent on making up goes past that point of attractiveness, because it suggests that the additional effort is being spent on signaling other women, rather than on being attractive for us. ;-) (Even if a man doesn’t “get” signaling, he knows that the additional effort is both decreasing his enjoyment and eating into the time he will be spending with his date.)
The things that men most widely despise in relation to artificial appearance are not the attention to detail, but rather, the lack of attention to which details men actually prefer. There are fashion trends in makeup and clothing that seem to be beloved by women, but are absolutely hideous to men at large, because they fail to trigger the visual systems that give us pleasure, or do trigger ones that trigger avoidance.
For example, I forget what they’re called, but those tops that make it look like the woman’s waist is just beneath her bust… they make women look pregnant at first glance, no matter how otherwise nice and fashionable the tops may be. Eyebrow treatments that make women look like Ming The Merciless, etc. These are the sort of “details” men tend to despise.
In other words, it’s not that we dislike women’s attention to detail. It’s more that we’re appalled by the amount of time and effort that appears to go into doing things we don’t like.
I would guess that this is probably symmetrical to the things that men spend a lot of time on for women’s sake, that women don’t like either. E.g. bragging about their possessions and accomplishments might be a good example of a place where men try too hard and turn off women in the same way.
For example, I forget what they’re called, but those tops that make it look like the woman’s waist is just beneath her bust… they make women look pregnant at first glance, no matter how otherwise nice and fashionable the tops may be.
Yep, that’s the term. I was more thinking of the lingerie term (babydoll), because my wife owns a lingerie store, works at home in the office next to mine, and I overhear a lot of stuff. (Yes, they make those hideous waistlines in lingerie, too. [shudder])
I think it’d be more accurate to say that we prefer any makeup to look like the wearer just naturally looks that way, rather than like they made themselves up. (Since awareness of the makeup detracts from the immediate and visceral pleasure we’d otherwise receive from viewing an attractive woman.)
I’ve heard about a study (sorry no cite) which found, not only that men think women with light make-up look better, but that those women look more natural.
We also dislike it when the time spent on making up goes past that point of attractiveness, because it suggests that the additional effort is being spent on signaling other women, rather than on being attractive for us. ;-) (Even if a man doesn’t “get” signaling, he knows that the additional effort is both decreasing his enjoyment and eating into the time he will be spending with his date.)
I may not be typical, but it doesn’t feel like working on signaling if (as rarely happens), I fiddle with my appearance. It feels more like trying to get things “right”, like something between an art and a craft.
A goddawful thing I’ve occasionally run into from men is them boasting about how dangerous they are. I really detest it. I don’t know if it turns off all women.
Part of the problem is that I don’t know how to evaluate it for accuracy. This makes it noise (and rather repetitive), not signal.
Furthermore, I’m 4′11″ and not athletic. I haven’t found people to be especially dangerous to me in general, but I make it through my life without needing to be scary.
And I have the irrational impression that those guys are trying to prove that I don’t scare them. Ick.
I mentioned all this to a male friend, and he said that talking about how dangerous one is is normal male chat. If so, I’m glad I’m not stuck with it.
I may not be typical, but it doesn’t feel like working on signaling if (as rarely happens), I fiddle with my appearance. It feels more like trying to get things “right”, like something between an art and a craft.
This data point isn’t terribly relevant to the question of whether signalling is the ‘true’ explanation for your actions—signaling is not in general expected to be a conscious motive for any given action.
A goddawful thing I’ve occasionally run into from men is them boasting about how dangerous they are. I really detest it. I don’t know if it turns off all women.
This would generally be an example of cheap talk rather than signalling. To the extent that women are attracted to ‘dangerous’ men (more accurately men who will be able to defend them and their children from harm and to dominate other men and so provide more resources) they will be attuned to signals that are hard to fake. Boasting is a cheap signal and may well backfire even on targets who are genuinely seeking the advertised quality.
Furthermore, I’m 4′11″ and not athletic. I haven’t found people to be especially dangerous to me in general, but I make it through my life without needing to be scary.
I assume you realize that your experience would likely be different if you were male?
I’ve heard about a study (sorry no cite) which found, not only that men think women with light make-up look better, but that those women look more natural.
You mean, better and more natural than women without any make up? I would guess that’s probably a simple case of the halo effect at work, with “better” creating a halo inclining them to rate higher on “natural”.
I may not be typical, but it doesn’t feel like working on signaling if (as rarely happens), I fiddle with my appearance. It feels more like trying to get things “right”, like something between an art and a craft.
But where does your learning of what’s “right” come from? Don’t women generally learn what’s “right” in this area from other women?
A goddawful thing I’ve occasionally run into from men is them boasting about how dangerous they are. I really detest it. I don’t know if it turns off all women. Part of the problem is that I don’t know how to evaluate it for accuracy. This makes it noise (and rather repetitive), not signal.
The PUA literature says this is true of all forms of male boasting, so presumably you’re far from alone. It’s rather like disinformation—if you want the enemy to believe your fake plans, you have to make the information more costly for them to obtain than just listening to a broadcast announcement. ;-)
And I have the irrational impression that those guys are trying to prove that I don’t scare them. Ick.
Wouldn’t surprise me. Men generally do the stupidest things when trying to prove their bravery, get laid, or both. ;-)
I mentioned all this to a male friend, and he said that talking about how dangerous one is is normal male chat. If so, I’m glad I’m not stuck with it.
It might be more accurate to say that male chat involves posturing about one’s prowess, which might be intellectual rather than physical, depending on one’s circle of friends. (Of course, if you put it that way, “normal” female chat tends to be the same, just less overt, and more about social knowledge and status than individual ability.)
A goddawful thing I’ve occasionally run into from men is them boasting about how dangerous they are. I really detest it. I don’t know if it turns off all women.
I would expect it to, particularly when the boasts are directed to women and not overheard when directed to other men. As you suggest, it isn’t a credible signal and can also seem insecure.
Your comment is non-responsive because I was (mainly) referring to cases where the man doesn’t have advance knowledge of how much make-up the woman was using. In general, women aren’t expected to disclose such a thing to men they’ve just met, and don’t do it voluntarily. Hence why Morendil’s claim
Because women make no bones telling men they’re wearing make-up
is wrong.
Now, regarding your point:
I was under the impression that men both want a rather artificial appearance from women and despise women for their attention to the details needed to create it. I would be glad to find out that I’m mistaken.
Pjeby beat me to it: It’s another case of average vs. marginal. Men might expect women to do a lot to make themselves beautiful, but resent them wasting time on fruitless marginal units of effort when they “look just fine, what’s the fuss?”—especially when it makes them wait, of course. This isn’t a case of impossible expectations.
In terms of being attractive to men, most of the effort spent finding “just the right color” of lipstick or whatever is completely wasted. (I remember a Maddox rant about the different names for indistinguishable lipstick color.) Many a time I’ve been tempted to go up to a woman in the beauty aisle of a store and say, “Ah! That’s it! That’s why men don’t show enough interest in you! Because your make-up is a slightly wrong color! Aha! It makes so much sense now! The mystery is solved!”
Fortunately, even I have enough restraint not to do that. But the point is, most of this effort does not benefit men.
Though I’m obviously atypical, I thought you might be interested in this: One time I met a woman through a group and asked her out. She later confessed on a date that she was caught completely off guard because she was in her nurse scrubs, was tired from having worked a long shift, and hadn’t done anything to look good, and so couldn’t understand why I had been attracted to her.
Of course, I did the stupid thing by explaining it with appeal to the concept of a “beauty invariant” … but that’s about right: I (seem to) know a lot about how physically appealing a woman will be to me on average, even if my first impression is in the lower range. But I don’t know if this is true in general.
Many a time I’ve been tempted to go up to a woman in the beauty aisle of a store and say, “Ah! That’s it! That’s why men don’t show enough interest in you! Because your make-up is a slightly wrong color! Aha! It makes so much sense now! The mystery is solved!”
Men also spend lots of time doing things that are more impressive to their peers than to women. I sometimes wonder if this is part of a price-fixing game of sorts, where both genders work to keep individual attractiveness close to some group mean, in order to prevent all-out, no holds-barred competition for mates.
Perhaps we would expect to see some sort of slogan, promoting group loyalty over individual sexual fitness.… like, oh, I don’t know… “bros before ho’s”? ;-) Women don’t have such a catchy motto, but the same idea is definitely in effect. Otherwise, PUA literature wouldn’t need to teach strategies for the neutralization of jealous friends and giving women plausible reasons to “ditch” their girlfriends.
I think these things are much more symmetrical than you are claiming, and that you’re simply biased towards paying attention to the problems on the male side of the fence, without looking at how the same limits, penalties, stigma, etc. apply on the female side as well.
Men also spend lots of time doing things that are more impressive to their peers than to women. I sometimes wonder if this is part of a price-fixing game of sorts, where both genders work to keep individual attractiveness close to some group mean, in order to prevent all-out, no holds-barred competition for mates.
This is an interesting idea. I’ve observed that while there is a norm among men in mainstream white middle class culture that negatively judges men who put a lot of work into fashion and style, yet PUAs work a lot on their style, and it majorly pays off because it is a large factor in women’s perceptions of male status (and therefore, attractiveness). It is probably a good thing for most men that the average level of style is commonly so low, and men aren’t held to such a high standard for appearance. Yet the cat isn’t quite out of the bag about how much style actually effects women’s attraction, or some process is fixing the price. Knowing how powerful style is, I can’t go back to dressing like a normal guy.
Stored riff: I think mainstream American culture encourages men to go way below the human norm for interest in how they dress. As far as I can tell, the default is for men and women to put approximately equal effort into how they dress.
despise women for their attention to the details needed to create it
Men really despise women for that? I suppose I cannot know the mind of men in general but that attitude sounds both bizarre and a terrible thing to signal if they desire positive attention from women (ie. to get laid).
I reject the constraint that the article have a deliberate focus on “this is evil, here’s how to protect yourself”.
How did you get from “women should be aware” of the biases, to “this is evil”? The constraint seems to fit with your standard:
My opinion is that LW shouldn’t be for PUA/beauty tips or how-to’s. But it would be appropriate to discuss why these methods work, under what conditions you’d want to resist them, and what countermeasures you can take.
I believe that discussions following this standard will not provoke offense. Mostly it is important to not come off as advocating the use of the technique for manipulation.
The point is to make a real comparison, to hold both sides of this issue, men manipulating women and women manipulating men, to the same standard.
This just shows me the extent to which the bias I warn about is present in you, and why my allegation seems to bother you so much.
So, me wanting to use the same standards in evaluating the two things I want to compare is a sign of bias?
Make-up, hairstyles, bras, etc. are forms of manipulation. Why are those acceptable, but not e.g. “negging”? That’s something you have to prove, not just assume.
Where did I claim that some of these are acceptable and some are not? The standard I would apply is what sort of manipulations the manipulated person resents when they find out about it.
So when I see you automatically attach all kinds of negative features to bias discussions involving PUA, in order to count that as a fair comparison, that looks to me like you’re trying to sneak in your own arguments by use of definition.
It would be perfectly fair for you to point to discussions of PUA that lack the features I describe as offensive, which still provokes offense, and to analogous discussion of beauty techniques that do not provke the same offense. Since I know, and have explained, what evidence would persuade me that I am wrong about what features are negative, it is not fair to claim I am saying they are negative by definition.
I consider it rude that you ignore my substantiation of that suspicion, and a distraction from the discussion that we should be having, of which my claim that you object to, is just one facet.
I did not ignore your substantiation. I refuted it. You don’t get a free pass on supporting a claim because it is part of a larger issue.
And your attempt to parallel my objection does not seem to fit well. Maybe you should not try to be cute like that.
I reject the constraint that the article have a deliberate focus on “this is evil, here’s how to protect yourself”.
How did you get from “women should be aware” of the biases, to “this is evil”?
Mainly from your implication that the purpose of the article is that these are things that should be resisted and, in a perfect world, never done to begin with.
The constraint seems to fit with your standard:
My opinion is that LW shouldn’t be for PUA/beauty tips or how-to’s. But it would be appropriate to discuss why these methods work, under what conditions you’d want to resist them, and what countermeasures you can take.[bold added]
I believe that discussions following this standard will not provoke offense.
No, because you’re ignoring the part I just bolded: for some of the techniques, one might be perfectly okay with others using on them. A lot of men are okay with their opinion of a woman being altered by makeup. A female commenter (which I’ll dig up if you don’t believe me) had remarked that (some appropriate subset she had in mind of) PUA techniques would have the effect, if widely used, of making all men hotter, which she would regard as good.
Let’s not forget, a lot of PUA is just teaching autistic-spectrum males to do things that “naturals” already do automatically. If you find yourself saying an action is bad only when you know why it supports your goals, you made a mistake somewhere.
The point is to make a real comparison, to hold both sides of this issue, men manipulating women and women manipulating men, to the same standard.
This just shows me the extent to which the bias I warn about is present in you, and why my allegation seems to bother you so much.
So, me wanting to use the same standards in evaluating the two things I want to compare is a sign of bias?
No, your attempt to equate your ungrounded hidden definition of manipulation with “real comparisons”, plus the substantiation I gave that you just cut off in your reply, is a sign of bias.
Where did I claim that some of these are acceptable and some are not?
Probably at the point where you required any discussion of biases related to PUA have the premise that it’s only being talked about as a way to destroy its effectiveness.
The standard I would apply is what sort of manipulations the manipulated person resents when they find out about it.
But why does that matter in terms of whether it should be included in the article? Why can’t it describe the effects that certain actions have, by reference to specific biases, which exist because of a specific mechanism, without rendering judgments about whether people deem them manipulative (which people, including and especially the targets of the techniques, will disagree on)?
So when I see you automatically attach all kinds of negative features to bias discussions involving PUA, in order to count that as a fair comparison, that looks to me like you’re trying to sneak in your own arguments by use of definition.
It would be perfectly fair for you to point to discussions of PUA that lack the features I describe as offensive, which still provokes offense, and to analogous discussion of beauty techniques that do not provke the same offense.
Okay, but you still seem to have this presumption that any article discussing PUA-related biases in women is by its nature promoting bad stuff and so must apologize at every corner by focusing purely on how to resist them.
I did not ignore your substantiation. I refuted it. You don’t get a free pass on supporting a claim because it is part of a larger issue.
No, you did not refute it. You have said nothing about the evidential standards I discussed, or the reason it is so important for you to learn the basis for my suspicions. The latter would go a long way to getting to the root of our fundamental disagreement, and be far, far more productive than unraveling what causes a suspicion of mine in one specific case.
And your attempt to parallel my objection does not seem to fit well. Maybe you should not try to be cute like that.
If attempting to get to the root of a discussion by comparison to the opponent’s standards is “cute”, then may we all be kittens!
You are horribly misunderstanding my position, and detecting biases in a position that I do not actually hold. Stop trying to infer a deeper agenda than the things I actually say. Your mental model of me is wrong.
I said women should be aware of biases they have that men will try to manipulate. That does not mean they have to resist it. They could react to this awareness by saying, “Oh, that’s cool, it lets me enjoy sex/dating more”, as long as that is their decision. You were the one who made the leap, on my behalf, from “they should be aware” to “it is evil and must be resisted”. I never claimed and do not agree that this is a necessary conclusion. Though, it is also a reaction that women could have. Or they can react anywhere in the spectrum to each sub technique independantly. Or they can react by thinking “I want sex as part of the process of getting to know someone for a potential long term relationship, and it bothers me that men try to make feel like that is what we are doing when in fact they are not interested in a long term relationship.” (And I am aware some PUA’s explicitly make their intentions in this regard clear, and this reaction is not fair as a response to their techniques. This should produce less offense.)
The refutation of your “evidence” was noting that there was no analogous discussion about women manipulating men to the particular discussions about men manipulating women that caused offense, so there is no expectation to observe offense at an analogous discussion until one actually happens. You have evidence that a certain class of discussion of men manipulating women causes offense, and the a different class of discussion of women manipulating men does not cause offense. What you do not have is a comparison of the same class of both types of discussion.
Do you want to show my refutation is wrong? Then stop trying to attack me, accusing me of biases, and find the two discussion that you can argue are in fact analogous, in which the discussion of men manipulating women provoked offense, and the discussion of women manipulating men did not. That is the object level evidence that would demonstrate your point.
Okay, but you still seem to have this presumption that any article discussing PUA-related biases in women is by its nature promoting bad stuff and so must apologize at every corner by focusing purely on how to resist them.
All you have to do is effectively argue that PUA discussion met the same standard as the beauty techniques discussion. If I say here is a corner in the PUA article where it did not apologize, you can point to a similar corner of the beauty techniques article. Any unreasonable standard you worry I might apply, you can argue the beauty techniques article doesn’t meet it either. But it seems unfair to assume I would treat these articles asymetrically before even having that discussion.
I said women should be aware of biases they have that men will try to manipulate. That does not mean they have to resist it.
When you used the word “manipulate,” I do see why Silas thought you were being judgmental and primarily advocating resistance. If you say you don’t mean that, then I believe you, and I would prefer that the discussion move on to substantive issues, rather than what biases you might supposedly hold.
I think part of the problem in discussions like this is the word “manipulation,” which different people use to mean different things (some people use it in a value-neutral way, while others use it with a negative connotation… and some slide between these two meanings whenever convenient). I prefer to talk about “social influence,” and whether it is ethical or not.
Perhaps you and Silas can just start this discussion over? What was the main question, anyway? I lost track.
When you used the word “manipulate,” I do see why Silas thought you were being judgmental and primarily advocating resistance.
I see what you are saying. But I find it strange to apply this interpretation to “men manipulating women”, but not “women manipulating men”.
I would prefer that the discussion move on to substantive issues, rather than what biases you might supposedly hold.
Me too.
What was the main question, anyway?
Should we expect this community to hold discussion of PUA to a higher standard than discussions of other sorts of “social influence”, in particular, the use of beauty enhancement techniques to make women more attractive?
I see what you are saying. But I find it strange to apply this interpretation to “men manipulating women”, but not “women manipulating men”.
What is this in reference do? Who do you claim was doing that?
FYI: In case you’re interested:
HR:What was the main question, anyway?
JGW:Should we expect this community to hold discussion of PUA to a higher standard than discussions of other sorts of “social influence”, in particular, the use of beauty enhancement techniques to make women more attractive?
That would seem to contradict the discussion’s history. You entered after I said this:
My opinion is that LW shouldn’t be for PUA/beauty tips or how-to’s. But it would be appropriate to discuss why these methods work, under what conditions you’d want to resist them, and what countermeasures you can take. (And I suspect some don’t even want it to go this far, or want to restrict PUA more than beauty.)
And you entered to respond to the bolded part. I don’t think that’s equivalent to
Should we expect this community to hold discussion of PUA to a higher standard than discussions of other sorts of “social influence”, in particular, the use of beauty enhancement techniques to make women more attractive?
I was saying that, even though both beauty methods and male charisma methods induce bias, some posters (unfairly IMHO) support more restriction on discussion of the latter despite their relevance. JGW denies the existence of such a class of posters.
I was saying that, even though both beauty methods and male charisma methods induce bias, some posters (unfairly IMHO) support more restriction on discussion of the latter despite their relevance. JGW denies the existence of such a class of posters.
I am not saying that no individual poster will treat discussion of PUA unfairly. But I think that there will not be enough to cause problems if we have discussion of PUA following the standards you specified. Are we in agreement about this? If not, can we discuss it at the object level, without trying to assign each other motives for the positions we take?
I am not saying that no individual poster will treat discussion of PUA unfairly. But I think that there will not be enough to cause problems if we have discussion of PUA following the standards you specified. Are we in agreement about this? If not, can we discuss it at the object level, without trying to assign each other motives for the positions we take?
Better yet, skip the meta discussion entirely and just create a relevant, well written post on a charisma related subject that one of you happen to be interested in. If someone happens to object on principle then we’ll see it and respond as appropriate.
Why waste time second guessing hypothetical unreasonable objections?
Hey, fine with me. I’m not the one demanding huge-likelihood-ratio evidence to justify an estimate made in an aside. That would be JGW.
If I turn out to be wrong in my estimation that LW mirrors a lot of society in going apes*** whenever useful female romantic biases are mentioned, like it has in the past—GREAT! The reason we have guesses is to have expectations BEFORE the ultra-conclusive evidence comes in.
I don’t see why SilasBarta could not have merely said “female romantic biases”. We don’t talk about “useful halo effects”, after all. The extra modifier only makes sense if you assume the audience wants to pick up women.
I wouldn’t have used ‘biases’ either. That framing gives the wrong implications about where the actual ‘bias’ lays, conveying the impression that for some reason female attraction ‘should’ conform to some other ideal. I am more inclined to look at the bias that propagates the ideal.
Good point also. “Bias” should be reserved for predictable deviations from accurate estimates, while the concept doesn’t carry over here neatly. There are certainly biases in the sense that “negging you is not evidence that he’s higher status”, but then, women are not more “correct” for wanting high-status men, nor is it quite accurate to say that women consciously pursue status, which is only as true as saying “men want to spread their genes”.
Rather, evolution formed women’s minds with preferences that are imperfect detectors of status. A woman may thus only want an “attractive man [that I have a bond with]”, even knowing that the attractiveness is just an artifact of long-invalid built-in heuristics. (Just as men may merely want an “attractive woman”, even though the judgment uses heuristics irrelevant to gene propagation in the present day).
I agree. I don’t accept “biased” as a meaningful modifier to female subjective perceptions of male attractiveness. At most, bias could be ascribed to female perception about facts about men that might influence their perceptions of male attractiveness.
Alright, that sounds creepy/sleazy/demeaning. Fair point. Let me explain why I chose that term:
Like I said before, accurate discussions of biases can be transformed, by an intelligent person, into strategies to take advantage of others. This is sad, but it’s the price you pay for accuracy. The harm is, however, substantially mitigated by the theory/practice gap that exists even for good theories.
I could have said, less creepishly, “accurate female romantic biases”, and that was my first choice, but it doesn’t really capture what I’m referring to: no one objects to e.g., “women like gifts”, but it’s not very insightful into female psychology. What I want to refer to is the kind of things that are politically-incorrect to talk about, but are actually true and do reflect the functioning of female psychology. So I probably should have said, “real, female romantic biases that are taboo to talk about”, but shortened it to “useful”.
Thanks, but I’m not sure “important” does it either. It is likewise important that women are often revealed to be biased estimators of the commitment of fathers they’re not married to, but it is the psychological basis of the misjudgment I’m referring to, not its empirical regularity.
In any case, don’t let it bother you; any poor phrasing is my fault alone.
Seriously? I asked the questions to see if there really was evidence that LW really will scrutinize a PUA discussion more than a beauty techniques discussion that is equally demeaning/objectifying. The best evidence I have is that when both topics were discussed side by side, in the same style and tone, neither produced offense. Silas attempted focus in on only the discussion of beauty techniques not producing offense. And you think I am the one who is unreasonable and nearly disingenuous?
Perhaps my questions could seem unreasonable if interpreted as the only form of evidence I would accept. But if that is the case, why not just present another form of evidence, instead of complaining that my questions are not reasonable?
It is quite possible that my impressions do you an injustice. I share them only to express empathy with Silas, who seemed to me to be getting frustrated in a way that seemed understandable to me.
You provide important insights, as usual, and it is appreciated.
Perhaps you and Silas can just start this discussion over? What was the main question, anyway? I lost track.
Well, I didn’t, and I generally try hard not to. That’s why I’ve now posted two summaries in the course of this discussion (first, second), tracing it back to JGW’s entrance.
Do you want to show my refutation is wrong? Then stop trying to attack me, accusing me of biases, and find the two discussion that you can argue are in fact analogous,
What you call an “attack” and “accusation of bias” was actually a very relevant query. Let’s review the history (again):
1) I stated a suspicion (prior tilted slightly toward one hypothesis rather than another) that PUA bias discussion would tend to be criticized unjustifiably more than beauty bias discussion. 2) You asked why I harbor such a suspicion. 3) I pointed to the flamewar over PUA, vs. tame discussions of beauty. 4) You say, in essence, that my position is so wildly implausible that I need to provide the same level of evidence as would be necessary to refute a “privileging the hypothesis charge”. You ask for an example. 5) I show a case where a man was shown to be biased because of a woman’s beauty, while less bias was mentioned for the woman, and a following calm discussion. 6) Here’s where the problem begins: Despite my relatively low belief in my claim, you go through the effort to refute the analogy and ask for better ones. Now: all throughout society, discussion of manipulation of men with beauty-enhancing products is widely discussed, while PUA, or any actually effect methods of drawing attraction from women is taboo. Yet you act shocked, shocked that this forum would be otherwise, and demand very specific evidence (and IMHO unfairly specific evidence) that it would be. 7) At this point, I’m confused. Why do you treat my mere suspicion like it’s some bizarre, random idea (actually one of 3 relatively plausible options) and keep asking for more and more evidence (and more specific evidence)? It’s been pretty commonly noted that a disparity exists (since the OB days), and you won’t stop until I can provide copious substantiation for a mere suspicion. Hm. That’s strange. Is this part of a broader discussion we should be having, I wonder. And so I ask.
See how it all fits in? It just seems strange that you really want to stomp out any belief, anywhere, that PUA discussions might be unfairly stigmatized. You ask for comparisons from beauty discussions, when you know there haven’t been nearly as many for comparison.
That’s why I ask what’s going on. Because it’s clear to me you’re not just humbly asking for a little proof of the outrageous idea that men have a harder time discussing the nuts-and-bolts of attracting women. You’re offended at the very suggestion.
So again, I’ll ask: what’s really going on here? What is it that makes this issue, and your belief on this issue, so important that you’ll hound anyone who expresses any contrary reservations until they give you that perfectly parallel case? Because I’d much rather have that discussion than this one. And so would the rest of the forum, I’m guessing.
That’s why I ask what’s going on. Because it’s clear to me you’re not just humbly asking for a little proof of the outrageous idea that men have a harder time discussing the nuts-and-bolts of attracting women. You’re offended at the very suggestion.
I have already told you that your mental model of me is wrong. Update already.
So again, I’ll ask: what’s really going on here? What is it that makes this issue, and your belief on this issue, so important that you’ll hound anyone who expresses any contrary reservations until they give you that perfectly parallel case?
As you have not given an example of a reasonably parallel case, you should not be predicting that I would reject such a case for not being perfect. I am not hounding you for a perfectly parallel case. I am looking for some evidence that I would not expect to see if the two types of discussion were held to the same standard.
If you believe the example you provided is reasonably parallel, please address my object level objections to it on the object level. There is no need to speculate as to why I made objections that you think are wrong, just explain why you think they are wrong.
If you can’t respond to my objections, and can’t find a better example, or other type of evidence, then perhaps you should abandon your suspicion, which you claim is already weak. Abandoning your suspicion does not mean it is false, it just means there isn’t a reason to be considering it in the absence of the sort of evidence that could support or refute it.
What is going on here has nothing to do with my feeling about PUA specifically. The objections I made which you seem to feel are nitpicking are in fact things that immediately jump out at me saying this observation does not discriminate between the theories being considered. It is like if person A gets sanctioned for engaging in behavior X, and complains that no one else ever got sanctioned for engaging in behavior X, when it turns out that no one else had ever engaged in behavior X at all.
Now: all throughout society, discussion of manipulation of men with beauty-enhancing products is widely discussed, while PUA, or any actually effect methods of drawing attraction from women is taboo.
If you can substantiate this, it would be object level evidence for your position. There is no need to act surprised that I have not taken it into account. Just present it as evidence and explain why you think it is true.
If you can substantiate this, it would be object level evidence for your position. There is no need to act surprised that I have not taken it into account. Just present it as evidence and explain why you think it is true.
I would consider an appeal to common knowledge adequate in this instance. While some could plausibly deny awareness that discussion of attraction (and social dominance in general) tactics are frequently taboo, an argument would be a sub-optimal context for Silas to engage in education on the subject.
Since the topic so closely ties in with themes like ‘near/far’ thinking and related social-political biases it would be a post that would be worth Silas making if he has sufficient interest and some useful sources to draw from to signal credibility.
I would consider an appeal to common knowledge adequate in this instance.
I would not. In our society, a man who has many sexual partners is reverentially referred to as a “player” or a “stud”, and a woman who successfully manipulates men is derisively referred to as a “manipulative bitch”.
There are 3,940,000 Google results for Manipulate Men, and 3,040,000 results for Manipulate Women. A ration close to 4:3 in favor of manipulating men, but it seems like neither subject is being repressed.
I was contemplating your post, and thinking that there’s no concept in the culture for a woman who successfully manipulates men into having sex with her, though there are concepts around “slut” for having a lot of partners. Or more partners than the speaker approves of.
“Manipulative bitch” would be generally be for a woman who gets men to spend more resources on her than is approved of. I don’t think the women other than his wife that Tiger Woods had sex with would be considered manipulative.
I was contemplating your post, and thinking that there’s no concept in the culture for a woman who successfully manipulates men into having sex with her
Seductress? And what is the label used for women who sleep with married men? Something about ‘family destroyer’, I don’t recall exactly.
“Manipulative bitch” would be generally be for a woman who gets men to spend more resources on her than is approved of. I don’t think the women other than his wife that Tiger Woods had sex with would be considered manipulative.
The difference seems to go along with the trend of ‘sex for resources’ in sexual relations. It is low status to be a female who gives sex for little return in resources while it is low status to be a male who gives resources without getting the sex that he desires. At the other side of the trade the ‘player’ and ‘manipulative bitch’ are of neutral or high status but also ‘bad’ and subject to intended social sanction by the one doing the labelling.
That one occurred to me, but I don’t think of it as being in current use. However, I tend to hang out in places that are leftish, libertarian, and/or poly. I don’t know about the whole culture.
I would not. In our society, a man who has many sexual partners is reverentially referred to as a “player” or a “stud”, and a woman who successfully manipulates men is derisively referred to as a “manipulative bitch”.
The appropriate comparison would be to a woman who gets men to spend resources on her with an insincere promise of sex.
And there is a vocabulary for such a case, though not as a term for the woman. Anyone familiar with “being friendzoned”?
Note that Google result counts on the first page of a search are approximate, not exact figures. On smaller result sets the actual count (as obtained by getting to the last page of the search results) can be close, or half, or even (that I’ve seen) a hundredth the approximated count. I would’t conclude much of anything from the ratio of estimates with such large error bars.
Those aren’t errors. If you repeat both searches with duplicates included, and go to the last page of results, you will find that Google is returning exactly 1000 for both. This is because Google never returns more than 1000, regardless of how many hits there are.
Do you have the empirical data to back up your unqualified assertions?
Try comparing Google’s estimates to actual hit counts (as reported by going to the last page), with and without “similar results” included, for searches returning fewer than 1000 hits.
Here is one experimental result: estimated count 585, actual with similar results excluded 177, actual with similar results included 224.
Do you have the empirical data to back up your unqualified assertions?
I gave some: Google never returns more than 1000 hits. Therefore estimates orders of magnitude above 1000 (as in the case at hand) cannot be tested by looking at the actual number of hits returned: the two numbers have nothing to do with each other.
I do not know how accurate the estimates are, but a factor of several seems to be about right, as in the test you just made. I have also seen anomalies such as a search for X giving an estimate lower than for a search of X and Y, but never by orders of magnitude, that I’ve noticed.
How about the totals according to the last page, excluding “similar results”? That gives 899 for Manipulate Men and 893 for Manipulate Women. That ratio is pretty close to 1:1.
And the totals were way off from the front page estimates, by orders of magnitude. Maybe this reflects a lot of excluded similar results?
Posting this as a separate reply so the separate issue can be voted on.
JGW, you’re confirming my suspicion that that there’s a deeper issue going on here, and I think we’ve found it. You see the issue I raised a one part of the broader issue about whether men or women have it better (in some appropriate sense I’m starting to discern). So you see it as completely topical to bring up a point like you just did, because it supports your stance, even though it has nothing to do with the point I’m arguing here.
Like wedrifid said, I’m not trying to prove that men, in some broad, general sense, are somehow “more manipulated” or “more oppressed” than women or anything like that. I’m saying that with respect to one particular issue—sharing accurate information among themselves that could be used to appear more attractive to the opposite sex—men receive more rebuke than women.
I think this is pretty common knowledge, and several quick sanity checks should convince you. For example, go to a retail center and count the number of places overtly promoting effective ways of making onesself attractive to the opposite sex, and the effort and specificity they give, and show how it compares to men and women.
Alternately, consider the rebuke you get for giving advice for being attractive to women that actually works.
Alternately, consider the rebuke you get for giving advice for being attractive to women that actually works.
You might want to rephrase that—even knowing your overall position, I parsed it wrong the first time I read it. i.e., as “giving advice (for being attractive) to women” rather than “giving advice for (being attractive to women)”. Your sentence is also unclear as to who is giving the rebuke—the recipient or a third party—although of course both are possible.
Actually, you can also get rebuked (or at least disbelieved), by giving accurate information to women (about what’s attractive to men) as well. Many things that men consider attractive in female clothing, appearance, interests, or behavior are things that will get women docked status points by their peers… and I’m not talking about revealing clothing or overtly sexual behavior, either.
I actually think that the situation regarding accurate advice is more symmetrical than you’re arguing. Women are actually just as stigmatized for seeking accurate mate-attracting information as men are, if not more so. What is socially acceptable is advice on how to be fashionable, not how to be attractive. As I mentioned in another comment, many fashions are not actually attractive to men.
Both men and women fear being stigmatized by their peers for seeking information that will actually help them attract the opposite sex, as opposed to information that merely helps them signal attractiveness and group loyalty to their same-sex peers.
What’s different about men is simply that men have much more to gain and less to lose by breaking with their peers, and are more likely to be outcasts or rejects with nothing to lose. The current (relative) popularity of PUA at the moment is likely because it’s mildly fashionable for men, in the same way that “The Rules” were mildly fashionable for women a while ago.
“The Rules”, however, are out of fashion now with women, and discussing them would probably provoke similar rebuke from men as PUA does from women.
(For readers who don’t know, “The Rules” was a book for women discussing behavioral tactics women could use to mentally manipulate men into long-term relationships, that had similar popularity to “The Game” for men.)
Those are some good points about the attractiveness/ fashionability distinction, and I made similar remarks to a different end. I’ll have to think about that.
However, I can’t but refer back to simple comparisons of the social reactions to advice, such as this:
“If you want to appear more attractive to men, show cleavage and arch your back.” --> “Duh, already know that, of course that’s how men are.”
vs.
“If you want to appear more attractive to women, act dominant by ordering her around, thinking of her like a disobedient child, and generally making yourself appear scarce and unavailable.” --> “Shut up!!! Shut up, you F***ING terrorist! Women are NOT like that, you worthless misogynist! You should be RESPECTFUL and DEFERENTIAL and give them lots of gifts. That’s what we want, chauvanist. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go meet my boyfriend, who is such a jerk to me. I hope he’s not late … again.”
Disclaimer: I’m not advocating the advice I paraphrased for men, but actual successful PUAs—who would know what they’re talking about—seem to believe it, and the refusal to discuss such cases seriously is inexcusable.
I can’t but refer back to simple comparisons of the social reactions to advice
Your comparison isn’t fair—compare mental manipulations vs. physical ones, and notice that “The Rules” were almost as controversial as “The Game”. Conversely, you’re not going to be declared evil if you tell men they should work out to get a certain chest-waist or shoulder-waist ratio that women find attractive.
Nobody cares that much about what men and women do to emphasize their physical attractiveness, or change in superficial behaviors to be more attractive. It’s things that involve direct effect on the attractee’s mind, or direct alteration to the attractor’s body (e.g. implants, lifts, hair plugs) that produce the most impression of deception and manipulation, and thus the most excoriation.
Also, phrasing is very important. I could rephrase your controversial advice in a much-less offensive way thus:
“Women prefer men who are confident and know what they want. So be clear about what you want, and don’t be afraid to tell them. They don’t like it when men come across as needy or uncomfortable around women, so it can be helpful to think of how you might interact with your kid sister—playful and teasing, rather than reverent or worshipful. Similarly, if you seem to have nothing to do but hang around with her, then you might seem like a loser with no other options. Cultivate other interests, including ones that don’t involve her.”
I just gave essentially the exact same advice, but in a harder-to-object to form. Most women I know would not only agree with the correctness of this advice, but would express their wish that more guys understood these things, and advocate educating men in this fashion—since it emphasizes the benefits of these behaviors for women. (i.e., confidence, relatability, and independence)
The problem is that men and women do not always use the same (connotational) language for behaviors. To a low-attractive male, any action taken by a high-attractive male is suspect. Thus, an initially low-status PUA is more likely to describe high-status behaviors in negative terms (e.g. “ordering her around”) rather than the terms women would use to describe the behavior they find attractive (“a man who knows what he wants, and isn’t afraid to say it”).
A PUA trying to teach others is also likely to use this negative language because his target audience of other low-attractive males will relate to it better, and it will also provide an outlet for their frustrations. However, this isn’t the best language to use for an objective discussion or to use with people who are, well, not sexually and socially frustrated to misogynistic or near-misogynistic levels.
A PUA trying to teach others is also likely to use this negative language because his target audience of other low-attractive males will relate to it better, and it will also provide an outlet for their frustrations. However, this isn’t the best language to use for an objective discussion or to use with people who are, well, not sexually and socially frustrated to misogynistic or near-misogynistic levels.
I actually think your formulation is the better way to teach it, as well. This variety of bitter misogyny tends to leak out in a man’s interactions with women even if he knows the right things to say. And women won’t find it attractive. People aren’t resentful toward their kid sister. A PUA’s target audience might like hearing the objectionable version more but it won’t be as helpful to them.
I just gave essentially the exact same advice, but in a harder-to-object to form. Most women I know would not only agree with the correctness of this advice, but would express their wish that more guys understood these things, and advocate educating men in this fashion—since it emphasizes the benefits of these behaviors for women. (i.e., confidence, relatability, and independence)
I mention this explicitly because I think this actually renders your wording importantly different from SilasBarta’s. In the specific context of men-seeking-women that this advice was written for, a man who lies about what times he’s free can make himself seem scarce and unavailable, whereas a man who actually has a crowded schedule will seem scarce and unavailable … but only the latter has (or might have) the actual desired property.
Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Higher-status PU gurus advocate approaching G as much as possible, rather than faking G*. It’s easier and more beneficial to your life to have more of a “life”, than it is to fake having one in order to play hard to get. It’s also substantially more beneficial to actually be confident, than to learn a zillion and one tiny behaviors that signal confidence, etc.
I mention this explicitly because I think this actually renders your wording importantly different from SilasBarta’s. In the specific context of men-seeking-women that this advice was written for, a man who lies about what times he’s free can make himself seem scarce and unavailable, whereas a man who actually has a crowded schedule will seem scarce and unavailable … but only the latter has (or might have) the actual desired property.
That’s only true if you view unavailability as a positive, rather than over-availability as a negative. A man who can simply avoid doing things that turn women off is still far ahead of the average man in attractiveness, regardless of the reasons or means by which he avoids doing those things.
As it happens, unavailability is one of those characteristics women may deny finding attractive, because it’s not actually enjoyable. (Note that we often behave as if we “want” things we don’t actually like “having”.) Yet, over-availability is a negative criterion that women don’t deny is unattractive.
It seems, though, that the thing that makes something “manipulative” or “deceitful” is whether the behavior is described in terms of things the subject agrees he or she would like, using “far” language, or things the “manipulator” would like, in “near” language.
The objectionable PUA advice is very specific “near” instruction about how to behave in such a way as to meet the PUA’s goals; my version was a mostly “far” description of “what women like/dislike”. Similarly, I could take “The Rules” and attempt to recast them in a positive-to-men light, by saying that men don’t want to be in a relationship with women who are clingy, desperate, or might be sleeping with other men… so if you’re looking for a man who wants a relationship, do these things to avoid putting them off.
(Of course, the truth is that both the Game and the Rules are pushing evolutionary buttons in the opposite sex that can hijack conscious intentions, AND contain elements that are consciously considered desirable. The “hijacking” elements tend to be seen as objectionable no matter which sex is targeted.)
To a low-attractive male, any action taken by a high-attractive male is suspect. Thus, an initially low-status PUA is more likely to describe high-status behaviors in negative terms (e.g. “ordering her around”) rather than the terms women would use to describe the behavior they find attractive (“a man who knows what he wants, and isn’t afraid to say it”).
This is a really good point. Think like reality! Behavior that pleases others and benefits yourself is virtuous!
Your comparison isn’t fair—compare mental manipulations vs. physical ones, and notice that “The Rules” were almost as controversial as “The Game”.
All manipulations under discussion pass through the mind, so I don’t understand the distinction mental vs physical. And, “The Rules” certainly hasn’t gotten near the attention as “The Game”, nor does it commit the sin of breaking from advice women already get. (“Hold off on having sex with a man”—gee, I’m sure women aren’t taught that, right?) So there parallel isn’t nearly as strong as you claim.
Conversely, you’re not going to be declared evil if you tell men they should work out to get a certain chest-waist or shoulder-waist ratio that women find attractive.
But that’s not advice of remotely similar effectiveness: a) women rank looks as relatively unimportant beyond a certain point, and b) for a man, simply looking good is not attractive in that it does not, er, attract. You won’t get approached by women just for looking good; women, OTOH, will be approached by men mainly on their looks.
Nobody cares that much about what men and women do to emphasize their physical attractiveness, or change in superficial behaviors to be more attractive. It’s things that involve direct effect on the attractee’s mind, or direct alteration to the attractor’s body (e.g. implants, lifts, hair plugs) that produce the most impression of deception and manipulation, and thus the most excoriation.
(ETA:) I’m not alleging deception or hypocrisy in those standards and judgments. What I criticize is the attempt to suppress and disparage truthful information about what criteria women are actually using. What goes on now would be like if men adamantly denied that breast implants have any effect whatsoever on female attractiveness, and that they’re immoral, and pursued women with implants almost exclusively. (I know you disagree that this accurately characterizes what goes on, and my responses to that are elsewhere in this post. I just want to clarify what specific behavior I’m criticizing.)
Also, phrasing is very important. I could rephrase your controversial advice in a much-less offensive way thus:
[...] I just gave essentially the exact same advice, but in a harder-to-object to form.
Not for “ordering them around”, you didn’t; there was no parallel in the advice you gave for that. More importantly, the good advice you claim women agree with is given side by side with the stuff that’s completely ineffective and countereffective (gifts, admiration, letting her make choices—which by the way does not contradict “knowing what you want”). How are men supposed to know which advice is deception and which isn’t (or perhaps more politely, which advice reveals a lack of self-understanding / luminosity / going along with what one’s expected to say)?
Most women I know would not only agree with the correctness of this advice, but would express their wish that more guys understood these things, and advocate educating men in this fashion—since it emphasizes the benefits of these behaviors for women. (i.e., confidence, relatability, and independence)
Sure, but like above, they say the same thing about men doing the counterproductive stuff. A clock is broken even when it’s right twice a day.
The problem is that men and women do not always use the same (connotational) language for behaviors. … the terms women would use to describe the behavior they find attractive (“a man who knows what he wants, and isn’t afraid to say it”).
It sounds like you’re saying women are truthful as long as you stick to euphemisms and politician-speak(“a man saying what he wants”) and stay away from practical implications (“a man ordering a woman to use a different fashion” [1]). Am I supposed to be thankful for this?
[1] Which counts as sexual harassment, btw (unless you’re really hot).
You won’t get approached by women just for looking good
Oh come now. It’ll get you AIs and IOIs (Approach Invitations and Indicators of Interest), which are the female equivalent. (Of course, “looking good” includes dressing well and being well-groomed.)
Not for “ordering them around”, you didn’t; there was no parallel in the advice you gave for that.
Yes there was—be clear about what you want, and say it. This is merely one of the ways a woman would positively describe what you’re calling “ordering them around”.
Both descriptions carry subjective connotations, without being a truly accurate low-level description of “confident leadership” behaviors—and are equally biased.
A truly neutral description of the behaviors in question would be much longer to write, since it would need to describe behavioral guidelines in much more detail.
How are men supposed to know which advice is deception and which isn’t (or perhaps more politely, which advice reveals a lack of self-understanding / luminosity / going along with what one’s expected to say)?
WTF does that have to do with this discussion? I didn’t say men should try to learn PUA from women; there’s a clear and obvious advantage to learning them from men (for the most part).
(I’m skipping replying to the rest of your comment, because it’s just more down the same sinkhole.)
You seem to have confused me with the “PUA=bad” crowd, but nothing I said can’t be found in PUA materials. I’m also not in favor of banning PUA discussion on LW.
What I disagree with you on is the assertion of asymmetrical bias and social pressures for men and women regarding the “venusian arts”. Most of the asymmetry you assert disappears when you control for physical vs. mental, male vs. female goals, etc.
AFAICT, you are so stuck in anger about women, that you can’t see just how symmetrical the situation actually is for them. Men don’t give women good advice for what we want in long-term relationships, being just as likely to say we want one thing, but actually commit to another. And men are just as likely to be irritated when women point this out, as the reverse.
ISTM that one reason you don’t see this is that you keep talking about “beauty” techniques as the appropriate parallel to PUA, when that would only make sense if women’s evolutionarily-assigned mating goals had to do with short-term sexual interest, vs. long term bonding.
I also don’t get why you seem to keep making arguments about the culture at large, vs. rationalist culture and LessWrong. The two are different enough that you can hardly import the outside world here, and expect some sort of redress for wrongs that might be occurring elsewhere. That would be equivalent to a woman coming here and saying that we all should use “she” in our examples to make up for an excessive use of “he” in the world at large.
You seem to have confused me with the “PUA=bad” crowd, but nothing I said can’t be found in PUA materials. I’m also not in favor of banning PUA discussion on LW.
What? Where are you getting you this? I’ve long known you were not part of the “PUA = bad” crowd, and that you’re not in favor of banning. I would counterpropose that you’re interpreting my disagreement and occasional impatience as hostility, and assuming it carries over to other areas.
I’m going to delete the unhelpful psychoanalysis from the rest of these excerpts; they have nothing to do with the validity of my points and only serve to insult. If I’m wrong, let it be for some reason other than “Silas is a nut”.
you can’t see just how symmetrical the situation actually is for them. Men don’t give women good advice for what we want in long-term relationships,
Don’t speak for me; I’ve never been asked, and, on principle, I would refuse to give advice if I knew it would be skewed.
being just as likely to say we want one thing, but actually commit to another. And men are just as likely to be irritated when women point this out, as the reverse.
Again, speak for yourself—if I feel social pressures that keep me from being truthful, I say so rather than perpetuate what I know to be wrong. I imagine that if I were a woman, I’d adhere to the same standard and expect no less out of others, male or female.
ISTM that one reason you don’t see this is that you keep talking about “beauty” techniques as the appropriate parallel to PUA, when that would only make sense if women’s evolutionarily-assigned mating goals had to do with short-term sexual interest, vs. long term bonding.
Not really. I accept quite well that women usually aren’t going to be drawing men in for short-term sexual interest. Nevertheless, part of the necessary steps in getting “shortlisted” for a long-term relationship is looks, which is why I claim the parallel holds.
I also don’t get why you seem to keep making arguments about the culture at large, vs. rationalist culture and LessWrong.
’Cause it’s a critical example of bias and poor specification of values, maybe?
Now, for the rest:
It’ll get you AIs and IOIs (Approach Invitations and Indicators of Interest), which are the female equivalent.
Female AI/IOIs, by design, have plausible deniability. One can only take them as definitive at one’s own risk—that breaks the equivalence.
Yes there was—be clear about what you want, and say it. This is merely one of the ways a woman would positively describe what you’re calling “ordering them around”.
“I want beer” --> being clear about what I want, but not giving orders ”Bring me beer” --> being clear AND giving orders
I’ll accept that full specification of which is okay and which isn’t, is going to be difficult. Point taken, and I’ll stop bringing it up. But on this issue, at least, you’re going two far in blurring very different concepts.
I’ll accept that full specification of which is okay and which isn’t, is going to be difficult.
Especially since:
“I want beer” (with a strong voice and expectant eye contact) --> Being clear about what I want and communicating that my mere wishes should implicitly be interpreted as orders.
“Bring me beer” (lowered eyes, end of the sentence raised slightly in pitch) --> Making an uncertain claim about what I want, with a supplicating request for action.
What I disagree with you on is the assertion of asymmetrical bias and social pressures for men and women regarding the “venusian arts”.
A potential asymmetry that is of some interest is a difference in (typical) ability to separate ‘far mode’ signalling beliefs and ‘near mode’ actions.
Men don’t give women good advice for what we want in long-term relationships, being just as likely to say we want one thing, but actually commit to another.
Now I’m curious. What do men say we want in long-term relationships and what do we actually commit to? I think I know what I want but when it comes to related areas (what I want from work life) I have atypical preferences so I am not comfortable generalising from a sample of me.
A potential asymmetry that is of some interest is a difference in (typical) ability to separate ‘far mode’ signalling beliefs and ‘near mode’ actions.
Certainly, it’s easier to make anything more palatable if you talk about in “far”—which of course is the whole point of “far” thinking in the first place. ;-)
What do men say we want in long-term relationships and what do we actually commit to?
Maybe you should ask a woman that question—honestly, I’m not sure how comfortable I am with trying to answer it in any detail.
Actually, contemplating just how uncomfortable I am with trying to say what I know, makes me considerably more sympathetic to why women don’t often give guys good advice. No matter how true or useful the information might be to the opposite sex, there is considerable social stigma (from one’s own sex) attached to telling the truth.
(Imagine the social consequences if a woman said she wanted guys to boss her around, or a guy said he wanted a woman who wasn’t always interested in sex when he was. And that assumes that either the man or the woman are able to notice this not-necessarily-conscious preference in themselves, and admit to it, before the social stigma issue can even come up!)
Certainly, it’s easier to make anything more palatable if you talk about in “far”—which of course is the whole point of “far” thinking in the first place. ;-)
(A different tangent to where mine lead but:) No, some things are much more palatable in ‘near’, particularly when talking to those who believe they have correlated interests.
Imagine the social consequences if a woman said she wanted guys to boss her around
I know women who say that, particularly to other women and do so without losing status and while maintaining rapport. They are less inclined to say it around guys but if, to give an example, I said ‘you love it’ they would take girlish pleasure and agree. One of the messages communicated is ‘Oh, great, he doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. We don’t need to lie to him’.
or a guy said he wanted a woman who wasn’t always interested in sex when he was.
Really? Guys actually act like they want to commit to a woman who is not always interested in sex when he is? With the aforementioned caveat that I do not generalise from me I have extremely strong evidence that this doesn’t apply in my case. (And thanks for giving your answer without answering.)
Really? Guys actually act like they want to commit to a woman who is not always interested in sex when he is?
Why do you think women are advised not to have sex on the first date, and not to be a man’s “booty call”, if they want a relationship?
Why do you think men routinely have affairs with women who’ll have sex with them, while remaining married to a woman who’s not?
I’m not saying guys like this—I’m saying that this is an example of controversial mating advice that works for “women’s goals”, in the same way that PUA does for “men’s goals”.
(Both phrases being in quotes because not all men and women have the same goals.)
Why do you think women are advised not to have sex on the first date, and not to be a man’s “booty call”, if they want a relationship?
That is good evidence.
Why do you think men routinely have affairs with women who’ll have sex with them, while remaining married to a woman who’s not?
That I do not find nearly persuasive. Men are less likely to have affairs when their sex life within the marriage is healthy. They are also less likely to end the marriage.
I’m not saying guys like this—I’m saying that this is an example of controversial mating advice that works for “women’s goals”, in the same way that PUA does for “men’s goals”.
That’s what I was allowing for when I said ‘act like’ (economic ‘want’).
Do you believe that ‘be less interested in sex’ would be helpful advice for maintaining a long term relationship that has already formed? I don’t deny the possibility, just assert that (concrete evidence indicates) this is definitely not works with me.
A relevant quote:
Elliot:Oh, my God! You’re actually getting married in a few hours! I mean, everything’s gonna be all different. Carla, you never have to have sex again except for when you actually want to. Carla:I know!!!
The quote is rather tongue in cheek but I would not rule out an element of truth (to the suggestion that without the externally enforced obligation more sex is required for maintenance and to secure marriage). In fact, high quality sources of dating advice often give suggestions on how manage such dynamics for the benefit of both parties.
Do you believe that ‘be less interested in sex’ would be helpful advice for maintaining a long term relationship that has already formed? I don’t deny the possibility, just assert that (concrete evidence indicates) this is definitely not works with me.
I think you’re misinterpreting the scope of what I said. I didn’t say that lack of interest in sex was attractive—it isn’t.
I said, “isn’t always interested”—i.e., variable reinforcement. I think it’s the case that a man will be most satisfied in a relationship when his partner expresses sexual interest and attraction on an ongoing basis, but nonetheless does not say “yes” to all requests to do something about it, or has variability in how far that interaction proceeds. Having sex whenever a guy wants to is potentially as damaging to a relationship as never having sex at all, in the same way that too-difficult and too-easy tasks don’t lead to a “flow” state.
I’ve seen relationship advice for women that actually described a relationship in terms of a video game, advising that there always be new challenges and levels to unlock, so to speak, so that things don’t get too predictable. For that matter, I’ve seen relationship advice for men that was basically the same, although I find it amusing that it was the advice for women that used the videogame analogy. (And written by a female author, at that.)
(OTOH, men are stereotypically interested in videogames, so I guess explaining that you need to be like a videogame to keep a man interested would make more sense than the reverse analogy.)
I said, “isn’t always interested”—i.e., variable reinforcement.
Got you! (Although even so, observation suggest that isn’t what works best on me.)
For that matter, I’ve seen relationship advice for men that was basically the same
I’ve actually seen a lot of good advice for guys of the form “If a girl did that how would you react? No, really. Well, it’s the same for girls.” Once people actually have a strongly developed self awareness that sort of direct empathy actually works rather well.
although I find it amusing that it was the advice for women that used the videogame analogy. (And written by a female author, at that.)
(OTOH, men are stereotypically interested in videogames, so I guess explaining that you need to be like a videogame to keep a man interested would make more sense than the reverse analogy.)
True.
Got you! (Although even so, observation suggest that isn’t what works best on me.)
Be aware that I’m saying in the ideal case, the woman isn’t saying no because she doesn’t want to have sex, or doesn’t find you attractive at that moment. (Or even that she’s necessarily saying “no” at all.)
I’m saying that the “flow” experience comes about from having obstacles that are a good match for your skill at overcoming them. It can easily appear to the man in such a circumstance that he is in fact getting sex as often as he wants, just not as soon as he might want it. A good “courtship” videogame may provide hours or days of enjoyment for both parties, prior to unlocking a new level. ;-)
(In contrast, having “god mode” on for a game might be interesting for a time, but quickly become boring. The reason “crazy chicks” have a reputation for being good in bed may well be as much about the crazy before, as the bed after.)
So, I think we’ve now succeeded in having a conversation about what works to attract men, that might be able to be found as offensive as the reverse. Let’s see what happens. ;-)
So, I think we’ve now succeeded in having a conversation about what works to attract men, that might be able to be found as offensive as the reverse. Let’s see what happens. ;-)
I think you’re right. (And our conversation has also reached an agreement).
So, the sound bite version is “To get a man to commit, be a tease?”
Only in the same way that the pejorative and inaccurate soundbite for PUA is, “To get a woman to have sex, be a jerk.” There’s an awful lot lost in both translations. ;-)
And, “The Rules” certainly hasn’t gotten near the attention as “The Game”, nor does it commit the sin of breaking from advice women already get. (“Hold off on having sex with a man”—gee, I’m sure women aren’t taught that, right?) So there parallel isn’t nearly as strong as you claim.
I believe I was in college when “The Rules” came out, so a bit younger than its target demographic, but I recall that there was quite an uproar about it at the time. There was a lot of criticism about the advice being manipulative of men, but also somewhat anti-feminist and representing a step backward for women.
Heck, I even remember a series of Cathy cartoons dedicated to “The Rules,” with the takeaway being part horror (I seem to recall Cathy’s Aaaak!) , part fascination, part willingness to try it out because it just might work, or something like that. . . . and, ok, Cathy may not display perfect insight into the American woman’s psyche, but it tends to get the big trends right, or at least did so in that era
So, yeah, The Rules aren’t the hip new thing right now, but in its heyday, the book got a lot of attention and a lot of criticism, and it also sold a lot of copies. I think it’s a pretty fair comparison.
Sure, but like above, they say the same thing about men doing the counterproductive stuff. A clock is broken even when it’s right twice a day.
I don’t think anyone here is saying: “listen to the women, they always know what is best”. Rather people are saying: “Hey men who know what women find attractive, you don’t need to phrase your true advice in such objectionable language.”
Not for “ordering them around”, you didn’t; there was no parallel in the advice you gave for that.
Not to bring this back to object level but I’m not sure “ordering them around” actually communicates good advice. There are circumstances where taking charge is attractive but it isn’t nearly as simple as “order them around” and I suspect whatever good advice is here can be phrased in a similarly unobjectionable way.
I don’t think anyone here is saying: “listen to the women, they always know what is best”. Rather people are saying: “Hey men who know what women find attractive, you don’t need to phrase your true advice in such objectionable language.”
I wouldn’t go as far as to support the (absolute part of the) first claim but I certainly support the second.
Not to bring this back to object level but I’m not sure “ordering them around” actually communicates good advice. There are circumstances where taking charge is attractive but it isn’t nearly as simple as “order them around” and I suspect whatever good advice is here can be phrased in a similarly unobjectionable way.
I disagree. Naturally things aren’t simple (simple isn’t a Nash equilibrium in the dating game!) but ‘ordering them around’ is good advice, particularly to those who most need dating advice. That class of guys tends to associate receiving orders with resentment and so tends to have a failure of empathy when it comes to their expectations of how women will react to similar assertions. “Order them around” is what they need to hear while the more abstract “taking charge” crosses too much of an inferential gap.
“Order them around” is what they need to hear while the more abstract “taking charge” crosses too much of an inferential gap.
I’ve seen more than one bit of PUA literature cross this gap by carefully pointing out how behavior X might seem asshole-ish among men, but is in fact perceived as positive quality Y when received by women from men, and further pointing out that it’s an error to assume this means one should act like an asshole in general.
Certainly, I don’t think teaching material should do any less. It’s likely that a properly framed discussion here relating the venusian arts to, say the Dark Arts, advertising, consent, consistent decision theories, etc. would also need to discuss both sides of that perceptual gap, at least in passing. (Albeit without so much detailed how-to info in between.)
I’ve seen more than one bit of PUA literature cross this gap by carefully pointing out how behavior X might seem asshole-ish among men, but is in fact perceived as positive quality Y when received by women from men, and further pointing out that it’s an error to assume this means one should act like an asshole in general.
That is a good way to teach it, even though it is somewhat of a lie (similar to teaching Newtonian physics). It usually isn’t healthy to teach about things that are actually perceived as a negative quality by women can also give desired results to men. That darker truth is best left until after people have developed their social skills and let go of their tendency to bury their frustration behind a façade of righteous indignation.
[What you were talking about] is a good way to teach it, even though it is somewhat of a lie (similar to teaching Newtonian physics). It usually isn’t healthy to teach about [the other part of the asshole equation that is glossed over by that approach,] that things that are actually perceived as a negative quality by women can also give desired results to men.
There are two messages to convey:
Some things you (naive guys) think will be a bad experience for women are actually a good experience, healthy for them and perceived as desirable.
Some things that are absolutely bad, unhealthy and perceived as undesirable by women can also be used to attract them.
The first of these (and the one that you mention) is a better subject of education. The second is a recipe for excuses, passive aggression and bitterness for people who don’t already have an appreciation for the first point.
I wouldn’t go as far as to support the (absolute part of the) first claim but I certainly support the second.
Yeah, the absolute part made it too strong.
I disagree. Naturally things aren’t simple (simple isn’t a Nash equilibrium in the dating game!) but ‘ordering them around’ is good advice, particularly to those who most need dating advice. That class of guys tends to associate receiving orders with resentment and so tends to have a failure of empathy when it comes to their expectations of how women will react to similar assertions. “Order them around” is what they need to hear while the more abstract “taking charge” crosses too much of an inferential gap.
We’re probably being too vague to evaluate this question. I read “order them around” and I picture men doing a lot of things that women probably won’t find very attractive. I suspect it might lead to the audience just trying to be mean to women thinking that will make them attractive. If I knew less about the subject that advice would lead me to do counterproductive things, I think. Language often needs to be tweaked for audiences that don’t understand right away. I might be in the minority when it comes to my interpretation of “ordering them around” but it really isn’t clear to me exactly what behaviors it recommends.
We’re probably being too vague to evaluate this question. I read “order them around” and I picture men doing a lot of things that women probably won’t find very attractive.
“Order them around” seems to be evocative of “Bitch, make me a sandwich!”
I actually have success (ie we both have fun and build attraction) when using such orders. But I do it playfully and there is a distinct element of counter-signalling involved (we both know I am not a controlling asshole) so how that data point relates to the topic is non-trivial.
Same here. But this is so context based I sort of doubt a bitter near-misogynist who just started reading attraction advice would be able to implement it correctly. In any case if this is the behavior that “order them around” recommends why not say “Women find it attractive when men can confidently joke and be ironic about traditional gender roles without worrying about being offensive.” And then give examples of this behavior and explain the counter-signaling going on.
When orders are given sincerely, they are usually more subtle:
Call me.
Come hang out with us on Friday.
Hold my umbrella for a sec? (the words are an order by the tonality is a question)
Would you hold my drink for a sec. (The words are a question but the tonality is an order)
The purpose of such orders is not to control the other person, it is to signal status.
Another use of orders (and other forms of dominance) is a reactive one, specifically reacting to “bad” or “naughty” female behavior. I put those words in quotes because perception of what is “bad” or “naughty” is somewhat subjective. Anyone experienced with young women (at least in Western culture) knows that some female personality types sometimes engage in behavior with men that could be considered “bratty” or “naughty,” by the standard of general cultural norms. PUAs hypothesize that these women do so consciously or unconsciously as a “test.”
What many people reading about PUA techniques (either critics or newbies) don’t realize is that a lot of the more controversial techniques such as dominance and status tactics are used in a highly contextual way. So these behaviors that wouldn’t be justifiable if dropped out of the blue would be justifiable if done in context, such as the context of responding to a “test.”
I am not completely wedded to the PUA view of when a woman is “testing” or not, and I recognize that false positives in that area could lead to a woman’s perspective being disregarded incorrectly. Yet I do think there are many examples of female “bad”, “bratty”, or “naughty” behavior that are correctly described by the PUA model of testing, and which do require a response. And one type of response can be behavior that would be unacceptable (or “assholish”) in other contexts, such as giving orders or strong negs.
For instance, if a woman has spent the last 10 minutes poking him and the joke has worn off, then a PUA might give her an order like “Hey, stop being such a brat.”
The ethics of dominance behaviors is context-dependent, and one factor in context is whether the other person is engaging in behavior that would be culturally considered to justify that response. Here is an example with neg-like behavior, where Monday night I ended up negging a woman kind of hard, because I perceived it as justified (even though I don’t believe in negging out of the blue):
Her: I’m trying to find N… I am going to tell him something that will make him happy...
Me: You’re the bearer of good news, huh?
Her: Yeah, I’m going to hang out for him with a whole day this weekend! He’s been wanting me to for ages.
[Now, by cultural norms, her behavior is a bit of arrogant. She was signalling that she has higher status that N. Social circles have status hierarchies, but it’s still a bit arrogant to practically come out and say that you are higher status than someone. What she communicated was “I am so much higher status and attractive that another guy in our social circle is lucky to hang out with me… and what’s more, I am so high status and attractive that I can get away with this self-enhancement with you!” So she was indirectly asserting status over me, also. I couldn’t let this assertion of higher status from her go unchallenged.]
Me: Ok, so that’s the bad news you’re bearing… but what’s the good news?
Her: (it took her a sec to get that the joke was on her, then she replied slightly haughtily and petulantly) Hey, I bet you’d be stoked if I spent a day hanging out at your house! [We both know this is true, from our previous interaction, but it’s a status ploy for her to explicitly point this out. My perception that I was seeing a “test” was confirmed. I think her behavior would be intersubjectively considered a bit immature, even by feminists how would normally be skeptical of many male claims of female “bad behavior.”]
Me: That depends… are you tidy?
Her: Yeah, I’m tidy...
Me: Great! Then I would in fact be stoked about you coming over to my house… you could help me tidy up my laundry
Her: You’re a jerk, you know...
Me: Yeah, I know!
Her: (reaches over and rubs my arm. This was a signal of attraction that let me know that I was calibrated correctly, and that she had enjoyed my response to her test. If I had detected that I had actually hurt her feelings by calling her “bad news,” then I would have instead taken steps to make her feel better or even apologized if I was miscalibrated.)
I signalled: “I don’t agree with your assertion of status over our mutual friend N. In fact, I think you are violating the norm of ostensible equality between friends by so nakedly attempting to assert your status. I assert that my status is high enough that I am justified in calling you on this behavior and making fun of you for it by joking that you are “bad news” and lowering your status. I am so high status that I find your attempts at elevating your status above N amusing, implying that I actually view myself as at least as high status as you, not merely trying to act as high status as you. I am not threatened by your status imposition, which is why I feel no need to explicitly call you on it. I am not afraid of your potential negative reaction to my enforcement of this norm; I expect you to take this tease and accept it as a justified response from me. Since you tried to violate the norm and claim status you don’t actually have, you actually lowered your own status, which is why I am justified in raising my status above yours at this time and delivering the status-deflation you deserve. I can tell that you are testing me by seeing if I will let you get away with your status assertion, and the answer is that I won’t. If you attempt such a norm-violating level of self-enhancement in the future, I will quickly and immediately burst your bubble.”
...or something like those things. I consider this a defensive use of status games; I wouldn’t neg a woman this hard if she wasn’t violating a norm and attempting to inflate her status. If I had let her get away with that behavior, then she would think that I thought that she deserved that level of status. She would engage in similar behavior in the future, and keep attempting to raise her status until she eventually considered her status higher than mine. If that happened, then not only would it destroy her attraction to me, but it would also destroy any chance of us having a quality friendship. Soon she would be referring to me as yet another of the guys who would be lucky to hang out with her.
Counter-intuitively, the way to maintain equality in my interaction with her was to engage in a status game, and deflate her status in a way that would not be justified in another context, such as out of the blue. In context, my lowering of her status was a deflation of the excess status that she was trying to claim, which is morally different from attempting to lower someone’s status unprovoked. Notice also that my goal wasn’t to “lower her self-esteem” it was to lower her level of narcissism and illegitimate status assertion.
It is by understanding power that I can achieve equality. Remember, as I mentioned before, a typical mode of social interaction is to try to increase your status incrementally until people stop you (like i stopped her). Unless you confine yourself to a nerd ghetto where people don’t play this sort of status games (and status is decided more by competence than by what you can get away with), you will need to engage in social power dynamics, if only as a defensive measure.
Status behavior (which may include giving orders) in a defensive context is in a different moral category from status behavior in other contexts. I hope this lengthy analysis is useful to someone, and opens their eyes to the fun world of subcommunication. Questions or disagreement is invited.
I really enjoy your writing on this subject, it’s informative and ethically enlightened in a way that most discussion of such topics usually isn’t.
When orders are given sincerely, they are usually more subtle
Call me.
Come hang out with us on Friday.
Hold my umbrella for a sec? (the words are an order by the tonality is a question)
Would you hold my drink for a sec. (The words are a question but the tonality is an order)
Returning to subject of my parent comment is there any reason this same advice couldn’t be communicated with “use imperative sentences” instead of “order them around”? The former seems both less offensive and less likely to lead to students being controlling (in a way that is poorly calibrated, unattractive and ethically ambiguous). I feel like it’s also worth noting that none of those examples are particularly unusual things to say. Among groups of platonic male heterosexuals of approximately equal status saying these things is totally routine and doesn’t even imply gaming or hidden agendas. The only reason it is meaningful advice for men trying to be more attractive to women is that the default behavior of so many men around women is to put them on a pedestal and start supplicating and self-flagellating. So some feminists are upset that PUAs are telling men to “order women around” when really a lot of the advice actually consists just telling them to treat women like the equals they are (I’ve said it before, treating someone as an equal doesn’t mean being super nice to them and deferring to them when possible). Part of this is probably feminists not looking at the actual advice closely enough, but I don’t think I could blame someone for thinking “order them around” implies something more offensive than “Call Me” (Do PUAs actually use the word “orders”? I don’t recall seeing it anywhere before this thread. The advice is familiar just not the wording.)
In fact, playing a status game with someone isn’t really the power play our language makes it out to be. A lot of time status games are just sort of skirmish played out between equals. The winner doesn’t really come out with significantly higher status, all they really get is something like a tip of the hat from those around them. This why, again returning to platonic male heterosexual relationships, guys can make fun of each other without permanent damage. It’s sort of like practicing, or like the way baby animals rough house. In fact, not only is there no permanent damage, this kind of behavior (at least in my experience, and at least this seems to be the conventional message) makes male heterosexual friendships stronger.
So when a man engages in a status game with a woman in addition to object level status claims like:
I assert that my status is high enough that I am justified in calling you on this behavior and making fun of you for it by joking that you are “bad news” and lowering your status. I am so high status that I find your attempts at elevating your status above N amusing, implying that I actually view myself as at least as high status as you, not merely trying to act as high status as you.
there is also sort of a meta-signaling of: “I think you are worthy competition and therefore about equal in status to me.” And like with male heterosexual friendships this kind of thing improves rapport. I actually think such status skirmishes might be quite central to healthy egalitarian relationships.
there is also sort of a meta-signaling of: “I think you are worthy competition and therefore about equal in status to me.” And like with male heterosexual friendships this kind of thing improves rapport. I actually think such status skirmishes might be quite central to healthy egalitarian relationships.
I agree. I think this element is what made the interaction mutually fun and attractive.
It would be helpful to have been there, to hear the tone throughout the exchange and observe your body language together, but I believe the interaction you describe seems familiar to me.
I agree she was testing you, and the outcome of the test was positive as she indicated by the affectionate body language of touching your arm. However, my interpretation of the test is more straightforward—I’d guess she was just seeking affirmation that you like spending time with her. I’ve often noticed that social norms (like modesty) are relaxed among women with men, especially if the context is flirtation. Also if she was testing you, she might have felt justified in relaxing the norm in order to get a more dependable test result.
I wonder to what extent generally, in male hacking of female social interaction with them, they’re coming up with the correct behaviors with the wrong theories behind them.
I think I would find the “bad news” poke you gave—which, funnily enough, is an aggression I would have incorrectly interpreted as provoked by jealousy rather than a disapproval of her status grab—more coy (and possibly more attractive) than a straight signal that you would be jealous and want her to hang with you. Instead, the counter-punch you gave signaled the desire to be with her without creating a request to contend with. It also seems attractive along the lines of a male acting more stereotypically male in an endearing way (jealous, and not admitting it).
I think you could have also passed the test by a straight signal that you liked hanging with her: “No, don’t hang out with him this weekend. Hang out with me.” In this case, you would also be signaling sincerity and a desire for a relationship, which may or may not have been appropriate for either of you. If you guys are “just friends”, then you could have the same response, but then I would expect you to overdo it a little until there is a laugh / affectionate punch on the arm.
I have more to say in response, but I will clarify one thing: the “bad news” jibe wasn’t implying that it was bad news for me that she was hanging out with him, it was implying that it was bad news for the other guy that she was hanging out with. I think that implication came across, because of her response which was to claim that I would want to hang out with her (which as interpreted as “any guy would want to hang out with me, including you, which is why it’s justified for me to so blatant assert that a guy is lucky to do so”).
I’m not sure if that’s why you interpreted my jibe as displaying jealousy; but if given my intended interpretation, I do agree that it could have subcommunicated jealousy, like a case of “sour grapes” on my part (which is slightly true, though not the primary reason for the jibe).
I will clarify one thing: the “bad news” jibe wasn’t implying that it was bad news for me that she was hanging out with him, it was implying that it was bad news for the other guy that she was hanging out with.
Yes, this is what I understood.
I’m not sure if that’s why you interpreted my jibe as displaying jealousy;
Only because a jealous response seemed to be expected and solicited. So I predicted she would have interpreted the jibe as a form of sour grapes, as I would have if I was eavesdropping on the conversation. (“You’re going to spend the whole day with him? … Poor him!” is an appropriately funny and defensive jealousy response.) However, from your description of the interaction, I understood that you weren’t actually displaying jealousy and she and I would have been somewhat mistaken about the initial effectiveness of her test. But then it lead to a conversation in which you did signal the desire to be with her, anyway.
But this is so context based I sort of doubt a bitter near-misogynist who just started reading attraction advice would be able to implement it correctly.
I wouldn’t give this advice to a bitter near-misogynist (and don’t have a special interest in advising bitter near-misogynists, that doesn’t usually work all that well anyway). I would give it to ‘good boys’ who are still under the impression that the polite supplication that sometimes works for keeping mommy happy is attractive to female peers. It opens up a whole new world to them.
why not say “Women find it attractive when men can confidently joke and be ironic about traditional gender roles without worrying about being offensive.” And then give examples of this behavior and explain the counter-signaling going on.
Because I consider this tangent distinctly different from the original ‘order them around’ discussion. In particular, I don’t think ‘order them around’ implies ‘refer to them as bitches’.
(I didn’t reject ChronoS’ claimed evocation because the tangent is interesting and had no inclination to invalidate his contribution. For the purpose of your attempt to build upon that evocation as a shared premise I do reject it.)
Rather people are saying: “Hey men who know what women find attractive, you don’t need to phrase your true advice in such objectionable language.”
Really? Are we looking at the same forum? Because of all criticisms of PUA discussion, I never saw anything of that form—most importantly, I don’t remember acknowledgement that it is true (just as society in general won’t admit it). Those who found it objectionable, like this characteristic poster, demanded much more serious straitjackets:
I would like help reducing the incidence of: … Fawning admiration of pickup artists who attain their fame by the systematic manipulation of women. If it is necessary to refer admiringly to a pickup artist or pickup strategy (I’m not sure why it would be, but if), care should be taken to choose one whose methods are explicitly non-depersonalizing, and disclaim that specifically in the comment.
That’s way beyond, “hey, use less objectionable language when making these true claims about what women find attractive”. Don’t you think so?
Sorry, “here” is ambiguous. I meant in the discussion presently occurring, perhaps I should have just said pjeby is only saying that but I felt like my statement applied to everyone who replied to your comments recently.
I never saw anything of that form—most importantly, I don’t remember acknowledgement that it is true (just as society in general won’t admit it). Those who found it objectionable, like this characteristic poster, demanded much more serious straitjackets:
My position is here. But yes, past discussions involved broader disagreement. I mostly meant that I didn’t think your interpretation of pjeby’s comment was accurate.
(ETA: I’m sympathetic to a lot of what she says but I’m not sure I’d agree alicorn was “characteristic” in that particular discussion.)
I’m wondering about this “taking charge” thing. Does it just apply when the woman isn’t very sure about what she wants? Or also when the male overrides a clear desire of hers? What if the man takes charge and turns out to be wrong about the outcome?
I’m wondering about this “taking charge” thing. Does it just apply when the woman isn’t very sure about what she wants? Or also when the male overrides a clear desire of hers?
The main context it’s discussed in is situations where no-one has expressed a strong preference. In the case of conflicting preferences, men are advised to be clear and non-deferential regarding their preferences, without necessarily “overriding” anything. The point is to show initiative and non-wishiwashiness, not to push people around.
What if the man takes charge and turns out to be wrong about the outcome?
Then how he handles that is the next test. ;-)
I saw an interesting discussion of the movie “300” that sort of relates to this. Someone said that in almost every action movie, there is a woman who wants the man to stay with her and not go do the dangerous thing that’s his mission in life. But, if he were the sort of man who would stay—who’d, before going off to war against the Persians, would say, “you’re right honey, I should just stay here with you and the kids”—then she wouldn’t have been attracted to him in the first place.
And, if he did change his mind and stay, the attraction and romance in the relationship would pretty much die right away.
So the advice to “take charge” is really just to be the sort of man who doesn’t let a woman talk him into things for the sake of immediate pleasure (or lack of immediate conflict), at the expense of long-term interests. Such a man may be too easily convinced to leave or to cheat by a different woman, and be a lousy protector who won’t do difficult or painful things in his family’s interest.
So, the function of taking charge is that the man must demonstrate that he can tell the difference between what a woman says she wants and what’s actually best in a given situation, as well as his nature as a man of constancy, certainty, and initiative. It’s not really about making decisions, per se.
(For example, some “chivalrous” gestures like opening a door, pulling out a chair, or giving your arm to someone can be forms of “taking charge” in the sense that they show purpose and initiative, even though no decision is really being made, nor are any orders being given.)
I saw an interesting discussion of the movie “300” that sort of relates to this. Someone said that in almost every action movie, there is a woman who wants the man to stay with her and not go do the dangerous thing that’s his mission in life. But, if he were the sort of man who would stay—who’d, before going off to war against the Persians, would say, “you’re right honey, I should just stay here with you and the kids”—then she wouldn’t have been attracted to him in the first place.
And, if he did change his mind and stay, the attraction and romance in the relationship would pretty much die right away.
That’s fictional evidence—that is, not evidence at all. All I’m sure of is it’s harder to make a movie about the guy who stayed home, though you could do it if trouble came looking for him.
That’s fictional evidence—that is, not evidence at all.
The person who wrote that was pointing to the fiction to give a point of common reference for his observation of the dynamics between men and women, not using the movie as his evidence.
The author’s observation (and mine) was that women tend to lose respect (and thus attraction) for a man who they can talk into delaying or abandoning things the man says are important to him. The movie version is just that idea writ large.
The main context it’s discussed in is situations where no-one has expressed a strong preference. In the case of conflicting preferences, men are advised to be clear and non-deferential regarding their preferences, without necessarily “overriding” anything. The point is to show initiative and non-wishiwashiness, not to push people around.
The initiative and non-wishiwashiness is the most important factor but sometimes the actual override/push people around part is a useful signal in its own right too, if done skillfully.
That’s the part that’s really hard to communicate in a soundbite, or really to communicate verbally at all.
Especially since ‘do exactly the same thing but be two inches taller’ can completely change the outcome.
Sometimes it is best to just suggest ‘err to the other side to what you are used to’. That makes the difference between what works and what doesn’t much easier to spot so the countless subtle differences in context can be learned more readily.
Or also when the male overrides a clear desire of hers?
With trivial desires it probably applies. With significant desires not so much. The line between the two is probably fuzzy but has obvious extremes. How strongly the woman holds the desire matters too, I suppose. I don’t know if I can say more without context: I don’ t teach people how to be attractive so I’m not good at spelling all the intricacies out. I just know enough to make it work for me.
What if the man takes charge and turns out to be wrong about the outcome?
You’d have to be more specific but I suspect the outcome usually doesn’t matter.
More importantly, the good advice you claim women agree with is given side by side with the stuff that’s completely ineffective and countereffective (gifts, admiration, letting her make choices—which by the way does not contradict “knowing what you want”).
Or maybe the really effective thing to do is to know which type of behavior to exhibit when (so much of social skill is about context-sensitivity); all-out dominant behavior is more effective in some cases than all-out the other direction (‘submissive’ seems like the wrong term) or ham-fisted attempts at variation, so advice to adopt all-out dominant behavior, combined with the idea that the other sort of behavior is completely ineffective, persists among men who are less skilled and interested in those cases; and women introspecting on what they want get that they want both but don’t get the context-dependence, or don’t realize it needs to be said.
I don’t disagree with any of that, but note that this failure of introspection on the part of (influential) women on this matter is exactly what my thesis has been all along. And I wouldn’t tolerate that from myself, or from men either, especially if such advice had the impact that the widely-taught (and wrong) male-to-female engagement rules has.
No, but you are definitely not supposed to be bitter about it. ~1,000 times on OvercomingBias:
If you publicly oppose such rules, e.g., by proposing independent corruption police, you signal that you are not as well-connected, clever, articulate, etc., as others, and you risk retaliation from those who now benefit.
(“a man ordering a woman to use a different fashion” [1]).
[1] Which counts as sexual harassment, btw (unless you’re really hot).
Only in specific environments. And then, yes, the offence is mostly ‘making sexual advances without being hot enough to get away with it’. Outside of a place where sexual harassment claims are an option it would instead just get demeaning looks.
The negative reactions may have to do with the fact that such advice—and indeed, a comment like the above—amounts to accusing half the audience of a very blatant form of hypocrisy. Obviously one should exercise extreme caution when making such an accusation, and it had better be backed up with some pretty solid evidence—to say nothing of the pragmatic considerations of whether there is much to be gained by voicing such truths (if they are in fact true).
Yes, lots of people probably don’t tell the truth about what is sexually attractive to them. But if you go around saying “women are such hypocrites”, it’s understandable for a woman hearing this to take it as a personal insult. (If you didn’t mean for her to be insulted, you wouldn’t say it that way.)
I summarized some of the research on stated vs. actual preferences here. It seems to show that both men and women are often wrong about what they go for, but women may well be more wrong. However, I’ve only found a few studies like this so far, and I want to see more to feel confident about that conclusion.
The negative reactions may have to do with the fact that such advice—and indeed, a comment like the above—amounts to accusing half the audience of a very blatant form of hypocrisy. … Yes, lots of people probably don’t tell the truth about what is sexually attractive to them. But if you go around saying “women are such hypocrites”, it’s understandable for a woman hearing this to take it as a personal insult.
An important clarification: it’s not the hypocrisy per se that I object to, but its institutionalization, the massive failure to recognize the unqualification to give advice, and the tremendous benefits accruing to those who are “wise” enough to ignore women. See why that might be objectionable?
Obviously one should exercise extreme caution when making such an accusation, and it had better be backed up with some pretty solid evidence.
Okay. How about my life history, plus that of pretty much everyone joining the PUA crowd or identifying with its message?
“If you want to appear more attractive to men, show cleavage and arch your back.” --> “Duh, already know that, of course that’s how men are.”
vs.
“If you want to appear more attractive to women, act dominant by ordering her around, thinking of her like a disobedient child, and generally making yourself appear scarce and unavailable.” --> “Shut up!!! Shut up, you F*ING terrorist! Women are NOT like that, you worthless misogynist! You should be RESPECTFUL and DEFERENTIAL and give them lots of gifts. That’s what we want, chauvanist. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go meet my boyfriend, who is such a jerk to me. I hope he’s not late … again.”
I’m sure you can see that exactly one of those pieces of advice is ambiguous, and easily disambiguated as advice to engage in genuinely wrong behavior. I think that some sorts of people, which I would expect to overlap with the sorts of people opposed to pickup, tend to directly leap from a statement being potentially harmful to express, to that statement and its speaker being Bad. (Another example: statements about the basis of intelligence and race/sex correlations, with their genuine usefulness to bigots.) I don’t think that this is entirely incorrect of them, either instrumentally or epistemically — such statements are Bayesian evidence of bad character, for both direct and signaling reasons.
I accept that the advice I listed can be ambiguous. I also claim that a very large class of men has been so horribly misled by the official line on male-to-female interaction rules, that even the above advice, in its crude form, in its rank misogyny, would actually cause them to be more attractive to women—which just goes to show the depths of their deception.
Btw, what was sarcastic? Men who present the plain truth on this are the target of severe vitriol from women (even and especially those for whom it is true) and men who recognize its truth, but want to appear part of the “reasonable” crowd. My illustration of the vitriol is exaggerated, but not by much. And the misleading advice women promote does in fact mirror the official line (in mainstream books, advice from women, behavior taught in schools, etc.). What are you objecting to?
Btw, what was sarcastic? Men who present the plain truth on this are the target of severe vitriol from women (even and especially those for whom it is true) and men who recognize its truth, but want to appear part of the “reasonable” crowd.
And yet, you seem to object to framing the truth in terms that women usually like and respond positively to… which makes me wonder WTF your actual goals are here.
Oh noes, people don’t like language they don’t like, and I am being forced to use the language of the oppressors in order to talk with them about anything. Help, I’m being oppressed!
Damn, dude, this is like saying you ought to have the right to describe people using racial epithets, simply because the epithets are included in statements that are true, like “That [epithet] is wearing blue jeans.”
In NLP there’s a saying that the meaning of a communication is the response you get. If you want a different response, try a different communication already, and stop bothering everyone with this low-status whining. It’s a disgrace to everyone you claim to be speaking for, and everything you claim to be standing for.
And yet, you seem to object to framing the truth in terms that women usually like and respond positively to… which makes me wonder WTF your actual goals are here.
Where are you getting that? I’m not objecting to framing the truth in a professional, reasoned tone. I’m objecting to your attempt to claim that two phrasings mean the same thing, when they really don’t, thereby promoting a sort of uninformative politician-speak, as I explained here (and which you didn’t address):
It sounds like you’re saying women are truthful as long as you stick to euphemisms and politician-speak(“a man saying what he wants”) and stay away from practical implications (“a man ordering a woman to use a different fashion”).
You seem to really be taking the concept of “ordering a woman around” to mean so freaking many benign things that the term no longer has any meaning. Doing so voids the usefulness of words and cripples the ability to clearly communicate on the issues.
“A man who knows what he wants, and isn’t afraid to say it” does not, as you claim, equate to giving orders. And yet, PUAs do advise “giving orders”, while an uninformed man who was simply told to “know what you want, and don’t be afraid to say it” would not at all see how this means giving orders … because the concept thereof isn’t entailed by that advice!
While a professional, uninflammatory tone is preferable, it should never delete the substance of the claim, but that’s exactly what your supposed rephrasings do.
I’m objecting to your attempt to claim that two phrasings mean the same thing, when they really don’t
The meaning of the communication is the response you get, and the intended response to the behavior described as “ordering around” is that the woman feel that she is with a man who “knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to say it”.
By omitting the intended response from the discussion, it is you who are distorting the communication.
So, why does it then surprise you if women feel excluded, when you are systematically excluding their goals and values from the discussion?
You are insisting that your particular selection of concepts is “the truth”, when it is also the truth that women describe the benefits of these behavioral patterns in ways you deride as “uninformative politician-speak”.
But clearly, it is NOT uninformative to women! They know what they like, but have difficulty breaking it into smaller chunks because they have evolved recognition machinery for it. And that is not their fault.
And just because at one time you didn’t understand what this woman-speak means in men-speak, does not entitle you to claim that all women are therefore deluded, unhelpful liars and hypocrites, engaging in a campaign of mass deception to keep oppressed low-status men in their place with the conspiratorial assistance of the mass media.
This entire post was because of “exclusionary speech”—talking about women in a way that excludes their goals and values from consideration. That’s exactly what you’re doing—not just omitting those goals and values from your own statements, but actually objecting when anybody else brings them up.
The meaning of the communication is the response you get, … By omitting the intended response from the discussion, it is you who are distorting the communication.
No, by casually equating means (“give orders”) with ends (“a woman who feels she is with a confident man who knows what he wants”) -- an equation you just now revealed you are using! -- it’s you who’s distorting communication.
So, why does it then surprise you if women feel excluded, when you are systematically excluding their goals and values from the discussion?
No, I’m systematically using words by their standard meanings; the discussion of the ends is not, like you claim, being excluded; it’s just that you need to identify it as such. Don’t say “X and Y are the same instruction because they would, in the best case scenario, get the same reaction.” That’s wrong, and a misuse of language.
You are insisting that your particular selection of concepts is “the truth”, when it is also the truth that women describe the benefits of these behavioral patterns in ways you deride as “uninformative politician-speak”.
No, I’m calling it uninformative when it uses the wrong terms and acts surprised that I didn’t read minds for the real intended meantings.
But clearly, it is NOT uninformative to women! They know what they like,
No, like I said before, even if you can claim specific instances of women giving advice that (by hidden transformations) is true and useful, it’s still drowned out in the sea of advice that is ineffective and countereffective. How should I have known that this advice is reliable, but the (far more numerous) instances of “oh, be deferential to her, make sure not to cross these six trillion feminist lines” isn’t? How should the majority of men have known it?
but have difficulty breaking it into smaller chunks because they have evolved recognition machinery for it. And that is not their fault.
Just women, or women and men? I make a genuine effort to convert my “recognition machinery” into something communicable. I don’t tolerate “you wouldn’t understand” as a curiousity-stopper from anyone, not me, not men. Why do you (seem to) think women are so frail and stupid that they shouldn’t be expected to carry out this introspection?
No, I’m calling it uninformative when it uses the wrong terms and acts surprised that I didn’t read minds for the real intended meantings.
This is the part where the problem is: you aren’t separating “words that make sense to me” from “real intended meanings”… which then leads to an exclusionary result.
No, like I said before, even if you can claim specific instances of women giving advice that (by hidden transformations) is true and useful, it’s still drowned out in the sea of advice that is ineffective and countereffective. How should I have known that this advice is reliable, but the (far more numerous) instances of “oh, be deferential to her, make sure not to cross these six trillion feminist lines” isn’t? How should the majority of men have known it?
How should you have known that the world is round, when all of the immediately-available evidence is that it’s flat… unless you specifically go looking for obscure and “hidden” information?
Reality is not under any obligation to be comprehensible to human beings, so what makes you think you have a moral right to have comprehension handed to you on a silver platter?
Why do you (seem to) think women are so frail and stupid that they shouldn’t be expected to carry out this introspection?
Because, being a human, I’m too “frail and stupid” to carry out the reverse introspection in response to a casual inquiry. I also don’t expect the average person of either sex to have the degree of intellectual rigor required to refrain from confabulating, when asked.
(My own experience shows me that it is hard to get people to not confabulate, about any topic. Non-confabulation is unnatural to most humans and requires sometimes-difficult training, even if you’re highly motivated to learn… and people who think they already understand confabulation and the need to refrain from it are usually the ones who have the most difficulty learning not to.)
There are points in here that have value but they are not a reasonable (or particularly relevant) as a reply to the objection that Silas has made. Silas makes enough of a target of himself. You need not pad him out with straw.
I’m objecting to your attempt to claim that two phrasings mean the same thing, when they really don’t
The meaning of the communication is the response you get, and the intended response to the behavior described as “ordering around” is that the woman feel that she is with a man who “knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to say it”.
No. The intended response to the behaviour is not that. Or, at least, it is not just that. You can not demand that Silas use language that does not express what he is trying to say just because it happens to fit neatly into your own model.
More generally, it is unreasonable to expect people to comply to the quote from the NLP guru, regarding the meaning of a communication, least of all on a site that emphasises epistemic rationality. Yes, it is a useful concept but your appeal to ‘the meaning is the response’ to try to reverse a claim of who is distorting the communication is ‘clever’ but far from sound.
But clearly, it is NOT uninformative to women!
Your words do not convey the information (to women, or anyone else) that Silas was trying to convey. Don’t insist that he use them.
And just because at one time you didn’t understand what this woman-speak means in men-speak, does not entitle you to claim that all women are therefore deluded, unhelpful liars and hypocrites, engaging in a campaign of mass deception to keep oppressed low-status men in their place with the conspiratorial assistance of the mass media.
You are taking significant liberty in applying negative spin to Silas’s claims here. More liberty than that which you presume to deny Silas in his claims. Be consistent.
But omitting the part of the behavior that women do say they value, is the part that makes the language exclusionary, and provokes the objections and social stigma that SilasBarta claims to be arguing against.
His thesis appears to be, “Most women (and some men) don’t like it when people say truth X”—I am saying, “Most women (and some men) are generally fine with it when you also give sufficient information for them to connect truth X with their goal or value Y, and I see no reason to exclude that connective information… since it does in fact produce the negative reaction described.”
While a professional, uninflammatory tone is preferable, it should never delete the substance of the claim, but that’s exactly what your supposed rephrasings do.
Agree, some of the suggested replacements destroy the communication. pjeby is naturally trying to force your words into a nice sounding (mostly true) framework that does not necessarily have room for your actual position. That’s just what pjeby does in general. But in this instance do consider HughRistik’s comment:
Right, they mean “acting as if.” By the way, Silas summary of that advice is a tiny bit extreme. I do hear “be dominant,” and I sometimes hear “give orders,” but “ordering her around” in general is not something I hear so commonly. I do hear “treat her like your bratty little sister” sometimes.
You know what I think replacing ‘ordering her around’ with ‘give orders’ does? It gets rid of politician-speak. You are trying to embed a message in there, and it obfuscates the advice. (And this is just an example from a trend!)
You know what I think replacing ‘ordering her around’ with ‘give orders’ does? It gets rid of politician-speak. You are trying to embed a message in there, and it obfuscates the advice. (And this is just an example from a trend!)
I don’t know what trend you mean or if there’s a chain of things I’ve been doing wrong; I do admit that I didn’t even notice that “order her around” and “give orders” were different phrases to begin with, since I kept lumping them together. Your distinction between the two is noted, and appreciated.
Consider the suggested trend to be “not being hyper-vigilant about differences like ‘order her around’ vs ‘give orders’ when the political context makes nearly anything an invitation to umbrage”.
On one hand we have advice that is about body posture, and on the other hand we have advice that is about persuading yourself of things that are not true, such as thinking of an adult human as if they were a child.
And your question is why people react differently to either kind of advice, have I got that right?
So, ignoring your classification of cleavage as “body posture” …
On one hand, we have advice for male-to-female engagement that has a solid history of enhancing male attractiveness and which is enjoyed by females, and on the other hand we have advice that is about manipulating men’s hardwired judgment mechanisms, thereby subverting their better long-term interests.
And your question is why people condemn the first kind of advice, have I got that right?
Just because your objection parallels my comment in form doesn’t automatically make its content a correct refutation; and someone other than me has warned you that the tactic doesn’t serve you particularly well.
Do you or do you not agree that “think of her as a child” involves changing your mental state, while “show cleavage and arch your back” does not?
Your reply above directs attention away from this difference and toward the supposed “history of success” of the first form of advice.
This is shifting the goalposts, if your intent is still to understand why the first form is more often objected to. Whether the advice is sound or not is a separate matter.
Not sticking to one query is a classic reason why threads go out of hand (as this one has, once again).
Just because your objection parallels my comment in form doesn’t automatically make its content a correct refutation; and someone other than me has warned you that the tactic doesn’t serve you particularly well.
I’m aware of how people get angry when their own argument methods are turned around and force them to think critically about the basis for their own beliefs—though I don’t think that’s happening in your case. (The anger on your part isn’t happening, I mean—I do believe you are reflecting critically on your own beliefs, or at least are making a genuine effort.)
The point of me mimicking your form was not to be cute (although that was a neat side effect), but rather, to show that a simple reframing of the issue—by highlighting different salient aspects—would reverse the “obvious” answer to your question.
On one hand we have advice that is about body posture, and on the other hand we have advice that is about persuading yourself of things that are not true, such as thinking of an adult human as if they were a child.
You claim advice about body posture to be benign, while believing false, offensive things is obviously bad by comparison. (The latter is a strawman of course: the advice is to, like an actor, go into a different mindset in order to have a generating function for your actions, which turns out to be preferable by the “target” of it. The advice is not to believe that adult women are disobedient children as if it were some more objective or universal aspect of reality.)
Do you or do you not agree that “think of her as a child” involves changing your mental state, while “show cleavage and arch your back” does not?
Of course I agree, but this is a poor metric. Isn’t it more important what the advice causes in the other party’s mind? If “think of her as a child” generates actions, on my part, that the woman deems preferable, what does it matter that my mental state is changed? If a woman uses attire and posture that causes me to “think below the waist”, isn’t the impact on my mental state more important—because of the diminishing of informed consent [1] -- than the impact on the woman’s mental state?
Your reply above directs attention away from this difference and toward the supposed “history of success” of the first form of advice.
Because, as explained above, it’s not apparent how that’s a relevant metric or difference.
This is shifting the goalposts, if your intent is still to understand why the first form is more often objected to. Whether the advice is sound or not is a separate matter.
If the advice actually benefits women, that should negate any objectionability of the advice that is grounded on harm to women. Failure to speak frankly about the commonality of the kind of woman benefitting, while instead giving full weight to the supposedly-universal preferences of the most vocal feminists … to me, that looks like a social failing.
[1] Yes, yes, I lose status by mentioning that this can happen, &c. C’est la vie.
someone other than me has warned you that the tactic doesn’t serve you particularly well.
It isn’t usually a successful tactic, which is somewhat of a shame, given that it can serve to demonstrate how a particular (mis)use of argument is flawed. People on average don’t have the respect for consistency that I would prefer.
OK, we’re at least getting closer to something concrete:
do you think neither of the above is about changing your mind
do you think both of the above are about changing your mind
do you think the polarities are opposite to the ones I’m assuming?
It seems to me that “think of her as a child” is objectionable for the same reason that “think of the moon as being made of green cheese” would be: the proposition in question is false.
Whereas showing cleavage and arching your back have no comparable epistemic content. There is no “true shape of the breasts” or “true posture of the body”, no facts of the matter that warrant a comparison as in the other case.
If it takes an essay to state where you stand on those, I’m happy to wait until later. But if you can briefly state your objection, I’d be interested to hear it.
If it takes an essay to state where you stand on those, I’m happy to wait until later. But if you can briefly state your objection, I’d be interested to hear it.
In the grandparent here I merely allude to the claim that humans cannot change their body language, particularly sexual body language without it being about changing their mental state. Body and mind are just too linked, such that advice about ‘thoughts’ is often intended to work by changing posture and vise versa. But this is tangential and not related to the actual disagreement I have with your argument.
It seems to me that “think of her as a child” is objectionable for the same reason that “think of the moon as being made of green cheese” would be: the proposition in question is false.
See earlier reply. You misunderstand the suggestion. Replace ‘think’ with ‘treat her as though’ (and don’t leave out the ‘disobedient’ in either case) and I would expect the same (or a worse) reaction even though it completely avoids your technical epistemic objection.
ETA: I deleted the grandparent before Morendil replied. Not because I don’t support it but because I decided it would just be distracting. It was. ;)
“Treat her as if she were a disobedient child” still strikes me as predictably objectionable, because the statement is being made about an adult woman, which should screen off obedience being an issue; obedience isn’t expected of adults.
The specific bit of PUA advice we’re discussing here amounts to paternalism. Showing cleavage doesn’t. This is why people—men and women—object to the former more readily than to the latter. (Some men may approve of paternalism, but they are just wrong.)
I don’t reject ‘all that’. I did rejected a specific straw man you presented for the reasons I have already mentioned and. I don’t feel obliged to suggest that your claims here are outlandish since I am not particularly opposed to your overall position. That is, I think both you and Silas have valid points but I would not support either position as they stand, preferring a different emphasis (and a whole heap less moral judgement).
(Allow me to engage in the obedience/paternalism subject in a different comment, since that moves us to a somewhat different claim, where the lines are not already drawn in the sand.)
That is, I think both you and Silas have valid points but I would not support either position as they stand, preferring a different emphasis (and a whole heap less moral judgement).
This is my view also. I agree with practically all your commentary on their discussion.
which should screen off obedience being an issue; obedience isn’t expected of adults.
It is expected by sexy adults. It is also often given to those same adults ;)
The specific bit of PUA advice we’re discussing here amounts to paternalism. Showing cleavage doesn’t.
No it doesn’t. Someone would have to think of a different pejorative term. If they were into that sort of thing.
This is why people—men and women—object to the former more readily than to the latter.
People in general don’t object to the former more readily than the latter. It varies drastically with personality type, sex and subculture. The people that most object to paternalism are male nerds while the people that (I expect to) most approve of paternalism are conservative religious women. I have seen each of those classes of advice condemned to different degrees in different communities that I have been involved in.
(Some men may approve of paternalism, but they are just wrong.)
Ouch. That sounds like just the sort of ideal that provoke outrage in the face of practical advice.
I am not a huge fan of paternalism myself. In fact, I have in the past ended a relationship with a woman because I just wasn’t willing to be as paternalistic as she desired. I don’t begrudge her that preference and certainly don’t think she is just wrong for preferring a more paternalistic dynamic than I do.
The people that most object to paternalism are male nerds while the people that (I expect to) most approve of paternalism are conservative religious women.
Why those groups in particular? They are toward those ends, but I think I would have (maybe superficially/naively) said “radical feminists” and “conservative religious men”, respectively. Don’t necessarily disagree, but I’m very curious.
Those were just listed off the top of my head and biased towards groups and situations in which the advice is most relevant.
I suppose you may be right about he radical feminists with respect to paternalism, although I don’t naturally distinguish between common behaviour patterns based on the genitalia of the actor. I’m going with Morendil’s word here but to the extent that ‘paternalism’ implies ‘when done by males’ I would perhaps want to use a different word.
The people that most object to paternalism are male nerds while the people that (I expect to) most approve of paternalism are conservative religious women.
Those groups do lie towards each end, but why do you say they’re the extremes? Why not, oh, the superficial obvious guesses “radical feminists” and “conservative religious men”? I don’t necessarily disagree, but I’m very curious.
which should screen off obedience being an issue; obedience isn’t expected of adults.
It is expected by sexy adults. It is also often given to those same adults ;)
This leaves out whether you mean adults who like sex or adults who you consider attractive, not to mention whether it’s true of everyone in either of those categories, or whether it’s just some proportion.
It also doesn’t quantise just how ‘often’ the obedience is given to that proportion, what the exact scope of commands over which such obedience is granted, what measures of age and or maturity allow the designation ‘adult’, which group of adults are those doing the obeying and what level of obsequiousness is expected during compliance.
Hopefully what were clear were the assertions:
Obedience of the kind described is in fact expected of adults at times.
Having this expectation has a clear influence on sexual attraction.
On one hand, we have advice for male-to-female engagement that has a solid history of enhancing male attractiveness and which is enjoyed by females, and on the other hand we have advice that is about manipulating men’s hardwired judgment mechanisms, thereby subverting their better long-term interests.
You’ve got this backwards. Manipulating a man’s perception of attractiveness in order to secure short-term mating is in a man’s (evolutionary) interest. Manipulating a woman’s perception of attractiveness to secure short-term mating, on the other hand, is not in a woman’s (evolutionary) interest.
(Also, you conveniently ignored the bit where both manipulations are enjoyed by the recipients. If I weren’t so certain you sincerely believe in your biased perspective, I’d have to conclude you were deliberately trolling at this point.)
Manipulating a woman’s perception of attractiveness to secure short-term mating, on the other hand, is not in a woman’s (evolutionary) interest.
Nope, this is outdated. I’ll try to return to it, but there are actually a lot of hypotheses that suggest that some types of short-term mating were adaptive for females. See the good genes hypothesis, sexy son hypothesis, and Hrdy’s work on female choice.
(Practically everything else you’ve said in this discussion is gold, btw, so I hope you’ll forgive me for being brusque.)
Manipulating a man’s perception of attractiveness in order to secure short-term mating is in a man’s (evolutionary) interest.
Why would men have evolved to have perceptions of attractiveness that don’t track (are more conservative, when not manipulated, than would be in) their evolutionary interest?
Also, I thought we were talking about normative interests, what’s actually good for someone. Why are you bringing up evolutionary interests in the first place?
Also, you conveniently ignored the bit where both manipulations are enjoyed by the recipients. If I weren’t so certain you sincerely believe in your biased perspective, I’d have to conclude you were deliberately trolling at this point.
This. Also the bit where both manipulations affect hardwired judgment mechanisms, of course.
You’ve got this backwards. Manipulating a man’s perception of attractiveness in order to secure short-term mating is in a man’s (evolutionary) interest.
You’re filling in things that aren’t there. A woman can use her looks to get non-sexual favors out of men, and the advice that gets her to that level of looks is widely and unashamedly given (though not of course the suggestion to use it for bad manipulation).
The advice that would get men to a comparable level of attractiveness (i.e. even using non-sexual manipulation goals as the standard), by contrast, is not widely and unashamedly given.
The parallel therefore holds, despite the difference in goals.
Why don’t you spell out the mapping? Because everything looks parallel to me. Let’s start from the beginning. I reversed Morendil’s characterization of male vs. female attractiveness advice to cast the latter in a bad light:
on the other hand we have advice that is about manipulating men’s hardwired judgment mechanisms, thereby subverting their better long-term interests.
On what basis do you dispute that this accurately describes effective female-sexiness-enhancing advice? Sure, men would enjoy it if she used it get sexual favors … but they wouldn’t enjoy it if she used it to get them to do non-sexual favors (with a false hint of the chance for sex).
So, the quoted advice most certainly does count as being “against men’s long-term interests”, like I claimed. And (to tie it back in to the original topic), women can easily get accurate information about how to get to this attractiveness state. Men? Not so much. (Sorry for the cliche.)
On what basis do you dispute that this accurately describes effective female-sexiness-enhancing advice? Sure, men would enjoy it if she used it get sexual favors … but they wouldn’t enjoy it if she used it to get them to do non-sexual favors (with a false hint of the chance for sex).
Are you saying that even known-false sexual attention from attractive females isn’t enjoyed by men? Men pay for this at strip clubs and other places all day long.
women can easily get accurate information about how to get to this attractiveness state
I still don’t see the symmetry here. If you’re looking at things from the POV of mating goals, there is no bias—women have just as much difficulty getting accurate information, if not more, since there isn’t nearly as large a reverse-PUA industry for getting men to commit to long-term relationships.
If you’re discussing non-mating goals, then materials like “How To Marry A Rich Man” are just as socially-denigrated as pickup.
Last—and utterly devastating to your claims—there are widely available materials that explain how to be attractive to women, but which do not aim at sex as their goal, and these materials do not suffer from the same social stigma (because, as with women’s beauty materials, they are about improving the attractor rather than manipulating the attractee).
Specifically, plenty of books and other materials are available to teach men how to be stylish, sociable, and confident, quite well enough to improve their chances of being able to get sex from women with the “false hint” of a chance for a relationship or good genes.
The only way in which you can force an asymmetry to exist here, is if you either deliberately compare materials with asymmetric goals in areas where men and women are symmetric in inclination, or compare materials with symmetric goals in areas where men and women are asymmetric in inclination. This makes yours a tortured argument and extremely limited evidence of your position.
In contrast, under every other way of comparing the situation for men and women, we see:
Similar social stigma for things that state as their goal the manipulation of the opposite sex as an object to achieve the target audience’s goals
Similar lack of stigma for things that state as their goal the improved attractiveness of the target audience for the benefit of themselves and the opposite sex, and
Similar stigma for either admitting to true-things-that-work but are socially repugnan, with the expected relative lack of available advice concerning such socially-stigmatized truths.
The only way I can see to claim asymmetry under these conditions is to start from a premise of asymmetry, and then torture the facts until they give in.
Last—and utterly devastating to your claims—there are widely available materials that explain how to be attractive to women, but which do not aim at sex as their goal, and these materials do not suffer from the same social stigma (because, as with women’s beauty materials, they are about improving the attractor rather than manipulating the attractee).
I must emphasise that “but do not have sex as the goal” is a completely different issue to “they are about improving the attractor rather than manipulating the attractee”. Having sex as a goal isn’t manipulative. In fact, acknowledging that sex is a goal can make the approach far less manipulative than if a façade of political correctness is maintained but sex is still sought after.
On what basis do you dispute that this accurately describes effective female-sexiness-enhancing advice? Sure, men would enjoy it if she used it get sexual favors … but they wouldn’t enjoy it if she used it to get them to do non-sexual favors (with a false hint of the chance for sex).
Are you saying that even known-false sexual attention from attractive females isn’t enjoyed by men? Men pay for this at strip clubs and other places all day long.
No, that clearly isn’t what Silas is saying there. He is talking about hints that actually give a deceptive indication that sex is likely to be granted if favours are done. (To which I would always add a ‘shame on you if she fools you twice’ emphasis.)
No, that clearly isn’t what Silas is saying there. He is talking about hints that actually give a deceptive indication that sex is likely to be granted if favours are done.
Well, it wasn’t clear to me—especially since that would make it equivalent to men’s false declarations of love or resources to get sex… and the information allowing men to do that is just as available as the information that allows women to know they could false-promise sex to get resources.
And in both cases, the behavior is looked down on by society.
So, it would’ve been an odd interpretation for me to read into what he said, given that I was trying to interpret his evidence in the best possible light, not the worst one. ;-)
(i.e., refute your opponent’s strong points, not the weak ones)
Well, it wasn’t clear to me—especially since that would make it equivalent to men’s false declarations of love or resources to get sex…
I agree about the equivalence.
And in both cases, the behavior is looked down on by society.
I suggest that the ‘false declaration of love to get sex’ is frowned upon far more than ‘false hint of sex to get resources’. The treatment of the ‘victim’ in each case tends to be different too (the sympathy vs contempt balance is different).
I’m not sure which of Silas or your positions this claims supports since I’m not particularly attached to either. I argue that the significant asymmetry is different in nature to that being primarily debated here.
And your question is why people react differently to either kind of advice, have I got that right?
No, you clearly haven’t. The caricature you use in your dichotomy is absurd.
and on the other hand we have advice that is about persuading yourself of things that are not true, such as thinking of an adult human as if they were a child.
If people men are literally persuading themselves that women they wish to attract are children and then seducing them then they are acting, by intent, as paedophiles. Clearly the message trying to be sandwiched into ‘think of her as a disobedient child’ means something different. Something a lot more analogous to cleavage presentation in terms of the role played in attraction.
No. Someone seducing someone they believe is a child then it isn’t anything to do with paternalism.
Again, your dichotomy is absurd. ‘Thinking of her like a disobedient child’ does not mean ‘persuading yourself of things that are not true’. Dating advisors don’t recommend that men seduce females that they believe are children but still sometimes give this advice. They do not mean ″persuading yourself of things that are not true’.
Right, they mean “acting as if.” By the way, Silas summary of that advice is a tiny bit extreme. I do hear “be dominant,” and I sometimes hear “give orders,” but “ordering her around” in general is not something I hear so commonly. I do hear “treat her like your bratty little sister” sometimes.
Right, they mean “acting as if.” By the way, Silas summary of that advice is a tiny bit extreme.
Agree. “Give orders” is both a more accurate and useful advice and less provocative. That more balanced description would have saved rather a lot of hassle, even though there would still be disagreement.
The bit about the terrorists was also a little exaggerated. Amusing though.
Agree. “Give orders” is both a more accurate and useful advice and less provocative.
It’s not very precise, though. The part that actually makes the difference isn’t having the orders, it’s knowing what to “order”.
Which is one reason that I think leaving out, “knowing what you want” is actually losing an important piece. Without being sufficiently clear as to what you want and why—preferably a why that is good for the woman as well as you—you don’t have anything to “back up” your status bid.
I have seen much better ways of describing this than “give orders”, but they all take more than a couple of words.
And so I think it’s better, if we have to be imprecise in a discussion of this here, to err on the side of being imprecise in a way that doesn’t omit women’s goals and values, since that’s the whole bloody point of this comment thread… to discuss ways to avoid exclusionary language.
No pj. There is a difference between ‘not very precise’ and ‘saying something different to what I want him to be saying’.
‘Knowing what you want’ is important. But it is not what the subject of the expression is about. The advice “give orders” and applies even independently of knowing what you want.
That you are continuing to insist that Silas refine his words with words that don’t mean the same thing is both poor communication and outright rude. Desist.
It seems the Silas and PJ both think that 2 and 3 are the same or very close (the PUA’s are right), but they disagree on what that is.
So I don’t think PJ is trying to tell Silas to say the thing Silas believes 2 and 3 are in a different way, so much as disagreeing with Silas about what 2 and 3 are. It is a challenge to Silas’ assertion that the thing PUA’s say that provokes offense is actually right.
Actually, I’d say the four things to track (and this is actually simplifying a bit) are:
What the PUA’s say,
The specific behaviors meant, and
Women’s positive description of what perceiving those behaviors “feels like from the inside”
What’s actually “effective”, for some set of goals
Silas claims that #1 is “the truth” and #3 is “uninformative politician-speak”. I claim that omitting #3 from the discussion is (rightly) perceived as exclusionary and is therefore not a good idea.
AFAICT, we both agree that #3 is insufficient information for a man to understand #2 without #1, but Silas appears to claim that #3 is actively misleading and contradictory, as well as unnecessary.
I dispute this claim, however, since I found #3 to be of vital importance in translating #1 into #2, as well as being polite to include in a conversation for a general audience.
Of course, there is still the possibility that we actually disagree on #2 -- in particular, it may be that Silas is correct in saying that #3 is misleading relative to his perception of #2. (In which case, I think he has a mistaken understanding relative to #4 -- or at least, the version of #4 that relates to my goals for relationships.)
Whew. Complicated enough for you yet? ;-)
To the extent Silas and I disagree wrt goals for #4, or what’s actually meant by #2, the discussion is likely to be incoherent, so I suspect that may be the real problem. I’ve been attributing this incoherence to Silas being blinded by his emotions about the topic, but it’s certainly possible that it’s due to something else, such as a deeper disagreement on some premise we think we agree on.
or at least, the version of #4 that relates to my goals for relationships.
This is an interesting point. I think that a factor in whether or not a discussion of the venusian arts is perceived as offensive, is whether the goals it claims (or is perceived) to achieve aligns with the goals of the target.
The inclusion of your #3, while being inclusive in its own right, also serves to signal the alignment of goals.
Fairly straightforward, but also a reiteration of a straw man. Silas has repeatedly rejected the position you are ascribing to him and your continued misrepresentation is extremely poor form.
I imagine it would be, if I had any clue what you’re talking about.
You make assertions about what Silas claims (see grandparent). Silas has told you that this is not what he claims (and I have reiterated it in his defence). You engage in straw man fallacies. I dislike this behaviour.
You may disagree with the above, but to not have a clue what I’m talking about is motivated ignorance.
You make assertions about what Silas claims (see grandparent). Silas has told you that this is not what he claims (and I have reiterated it in his defence)
And it is not at all clear to me which specific assertions about Silas’s claims you are talking about. Perhaps it would be helpful if you could quote the specific segments of my summary comnment which you are saying are inaccurate regarding what you believe to be Silas’s claims, along with what claim you believe he’s making instead.
The time at which this conversation stopped being useful (in my estimation) was about 20 comments ago. For all my progress in self awareness I am sometimes slow to remember my policy of non-engagement in dynamics I don’t consider desirable. But eventually I remember. ;)
ISTM that it’s a bit rude to lob an accusation of motivated ignorance, then decline to answer a request for information. Despite your accusation, I am indeed genuinely curious regarding how it is that you think I’ve misstated Silas’s claims, since if I actually have, it is due to misunderstanding them—and resolving that misunderstanding would be helpful in wrapping up the thread.
The scope of things that PUAs actually mean is large. There is (necessarily) a lot of depth to the field.
The nuances of what is actually effective is large. There are many dynamics at play. Many actions that give results for many different reasons.
The scope of pjeby’s model is far smaller and far more idealized than that of either all PUAs or reality.
In the context under contention Silas referred to advice that PUAs actually mean that is not fully represented by pjeby’s idealized model.
What Silas is trying to tell PJ is that he doesn’t wish to confine his expression to the set of expressions in pjeby offers, because he is referring to PUA advice and or elements of reality that pjeby’s model neglects.
Getting to any real disagreement on the immediate topic would require pjeby to acknowledge the actual claim made by Silas.
The advice “give orders” and applies even independently of knowing what you want.
If you don’t know the desired end result, how can you possibly modulate your “giving orders” in a way that will produce that result, vs. another way that will produce the result of “creepy”, “bossy”, “socially inept”, etc.? Merely saying to “give orders” without any indication of what you’re trying to accomplish doesn’t strike me as particularly informative.
If someone had told me to “give orders” without the other context, there is no way I could possibly have gotten it right—which is why I’m saying it’s imprecise, and missing important information. For me, it is.
Power, yes. Her point of view not being relevant? I don’t know, I guess it depends on how you treat your sister.
Remember, the claim of PUAs (who advocate such techniques; not all do) is that a large enough percentage of women responds well to such treatment and enjoy it. You may well be skeptical of that claim. I am skeptical that the percentage is as high as some PUAs make it sound.
If you disagree with the tactic, I suggest that you follow it down to the root and look at the premises, and what reasons PUAs have to believe that women are reasonably likely to enjoy this kind of treatment. If the woman’s sexual preference is to be treated that way, then it’s not treating her point of view as not “revelant,” it the opposite: the PUA is taking into account the woman’s point of view by giving her what she enjoys. Whenever we look at weird and wacky PUA tactics, we really need to be thinking about what responses PUAs have got from women that make them think (correctly or incorrectly) that such behavior is viable and reasonable. We cannot assume that such behavior is primarily driven by their own preferences, or that it merely a jerk-like imposition on the part of PUAs.
The fact that PUAs advocate a certain behavior as attractive to women is sufficient to locate the hypothesis that they might actually be correct, and we should consider that hypothesis along with the hypothesis that PUAs are biased, or that such behavior is an imposition of their own preferences rather than women’s.
I have my own objections to the “bratty little sister” frame, primarily because I want to be dating someone who is an equal. A little teasing is always great, but if I wouldn’t want an interaction with a woman where I persistently felt that my role was too close to the role of a big brother, while her role was too close to that of a bratty little sister. Moreover, I think that many men have this same preference, and so would be best served by forms of seduction that promote equality.
Note that my objection is from my own preferences (and the preferences that I think more people should hold); I think the effectiveness and ethics of such behavior is less clear-cut.
You say “power relationship” like it’s a bad thing. My own preference may be similar to yours in that I dislike persistent and overarching power dynamics in my relationships (and I think that a lot of power dynamics are actively harmful), but lots of people, male and female, really do like relationships with gendered power dynamics, and seem to do just fine in them. As long as these relationships are chosen freely, I don’t have a sufficient basis to say that there is something wrong with the preferences of those people, or with satisfying those preferences.
Tentatively offered, but it’s possible that if PUAs framed their recommended behavior in terms of “some women” or “many women” rather than implying that what they’re doing works well with all women, there’d be a lot less social friction.
This may or may not be something you want, but part of this conversation is why there are so few women at LW.
Tentatively offered, but it’s possible that if PUAs framed their recommended behavior in terms of “some women” or “many women” rather than implying that what they’re doing works well with all women, there’d be a lot less social friction.
I would also like to see more rigor in describing the responses of different subsets of women. When PUAs talk among themselves, qualifiers do get to be a drag, even if a PUA has more complex views. I think more rigor would be worth it, and I find the tendency of PUAs to use language with negative implications annoying and socially unintelligent (“social intelligence” is a buzzword in the community).
In this regard, I found your comments elsewhere in the thread quite helpful to my understanding:
Yes, my broader point is that a lot of the observations of PUAs are based on the women they meet the most often. The type of women they meet the most often is club-goers of above average attractiveness. The average intelligence of these women is likely to be around the population average, they are probably above average in extraversion, and they have highly “people-oriented” interests (and they may well be above average in neuroticism and below average in conscientiousness).
and
So when we see PUAs holding cynical attitudes towards women, such as “chick crack,” or talking about women as children or pets (these last attitudes are rare, but not unheard of), we should consider that they are unfairly comparing average women to themselves. When PUAs talk about women like they are a different species, perhaps it is because average-intelligence people-oriented female extraverts do seem like a different species from 130 IQ thing-oriented male introverts.
Similarly, I would suspect that a significant number of the women who post or consider posting here may also be closer in many ways to the 130 IQ thing-oriented male introverts. And not only would these women find objectionable some of the statements by some PUAs (of the sort you highlighted in the quoted paragraph, or even somewhat less extreme examples), but they would find this portion of some PUA terminology/attitudes particularly off-putting in that its portrayal of women appears to not line up at all with many of the traits of these Lesswrong-type women. Indeed a lot of what I have read does not appear to even acknowledge that women of other types exist. To the extent this lack of qualifiers has been imported into the limited discussion of PUA techniques on LW (which I think it has to at least some extent), then this may be part of why the discussion has met with resistance and offense.
Similarly, I would suspect that a significant number of the women who post or consider posting here may also be closer in many ways to the 130 IQ thing-oriented male introverts. And not only would these women find objectionable some of the statements by some PUAs (of the sort you highlighted in the quoted paragraph, or even somewhat less extreme examples), but they would find this portion of some PUA terminology/attitudes particularly off-putting in that its portrayal of women appears to not line up at all with many of the traits of these Lesswrong-type women. Indeed a lot of what I have read does not appear to even acknowledge that women of other types exist.
Exactly. We are seeing two relevant categories of women that I will give the following labels to:
“Atypical women.” This category of women has a combination of the following traits: gender-nonconforming, thing-oriented, introverted, non-neurotypical. Highly intelligent people of both genders also tend to be gender-atypical. Women likely to be interested in posting on LW are likely to fall into this category. Feminists, queer women, polyamorous women, kinky women, artists, and nerds also tend to fall into this category. (Feel free to ask why I would group any of those categories of women together.)
“Typical women.” This category of women is more gender-typical and people-oriented.
This division is inspired by Gangestad et al.’s finding that people fit into two taxa: a majority taxon of gender typical people (85%+ of people), and a minority taxon of gender of atypical people (queer people were mostly in this taxon). If anyone is bothered by terms like “atypical women” or “typical women,” bring it up and we’ll talk about the stats.
I would categorize the relationship of these two taxa of females as follows:
The model PUAs have of women in the gender-atypical minority taxon sucks.
The model that many women in the gender-atypical taxon have of other women in the gender-typical taxon, also sucks.
As a result, PUAs and women in the minority taxon often miss each other like ships in the dark, and have fundamentally different experiences in heterosexual interaction, even they have a lot of psychological similarities.
Yet I’ve actually met plenty of women who would fall into the minority gender-atypical taxon who do understand typical women, experience difficulties interacting with them, and are sympathetic to male difficulties interacting with these women. A female friend of my mine in college insists that “women are evil.” Another female friend (highly introverted and thing-oriented) once told me that she doesn’t like most women and can’t relate to them; she considers them annoying and full of drama.
I think that controversy about pickup would diminish if PUAs promoted a better model of atypical women, and in turn, atypical women had a better model of the more typical types of women that PUAs encounter most often and base most of their theories on. Women in the minority taxon have a valid complaint that PUAs do not correctly categorize their preferences and persistently overgeneralize. Not only is this bad communication on the part of PUAs and a marginalization of the perspective of these women, it is also PUAs shooting themselves in the foot by failing to understand a group of women that potentially contains compatible long-term mates for them.
PUAs also have a valid complaint that many women in the minority taxon who criticize pickup simply don’t understand what men are dealing with when interacting with gender-typical women. These women are engaging in the “typical mind fallacy,” which marginalizes the perspectives of PUAs on their interactions with most women. It also marginalizes the perspectives of gender-typical women, particularly extraverts, who are less motivated to engage in this sort of discussion on the internet. Ironically, women with majority preferences are probably the least likely to engage in arguments about female preferences on the internet, while women with minority preferences are probably most likely to be interested in such discussions.
When I posted more on PUA forum years ago, I argued for better models of different female personalities, with mixed success. I have a lot more field experience and research now, I am pretty much the only person who has put it all together.
While most PUAs are going out to clubs and meeting women they often have trouble relating to, I almost exclusively date women who would fall into the gender atypical taxon (since I do, too). While intellectually I would like to see PUAs expand their models, it is nice that I experience very little competition in my niche.
You may have no idea how crazy-making it is to keep hearing “we mean well to women” when the version of women described bears no resemblance to oneself. Note that atypical women have a long history (somewhat weakened by feminism) of being told that they should be typical women. And when I say long history, I don’t just mean previous generations, some of it’s still in play. And, while that post about PUAs as trauma survivors straightens out a lot about what’s going on, it seems as though PUA is a bunch of tools for becoming more like typical men which simply make the PUA students’ lives better, being more like typical women has a lot of features which atypical women feel strongly would make their lives worse.
I’m not sure that “thing-oriented” quite covers the range of atypical women. I expect that I’d count as atypical, and I’m more word-oriented. “Not primarily people-oriented” might cover the ground better.
The model PUAs have of women in the gender-atypical minority taxon sucks.
I think that this depends a lot on what you mean by “model”. If you mean their calibration of what specific behaviors (e.g. yelling, being silly, very aggressive, etc.), then yes, I’d agree—it’s calibrated for “club girls” and nightclub environments.
But my observation is that the atyipcal women (whom I’ve pretty much exclusively dated) still respond to what the PUA’s would call dominance traits—just not the same signifiers for those traits. The main difference is that atypicals prefer you to show dominance over things other than them. (Except maybe in the bedroom, given explicit discussion and consent.)
For example, having a purpose and sense of direction in life, knowing what you want, being decisive, etc. are still a factor in atypicals’ attraction algorithm. Intellectual dominance, in the sense of being articulate, knowledgeable, insightful, etc. Not having these qualities tends to get you filtered out.
Atypicals don’t engage in status testing by being jerks (well, maybe some occasional sarcasm); they do it mainly by seeing if you can keep up with them intellectually—can you match them, pun for pun, double entendre for double entendre? Do you get their obscure references?
This is still status testing/flirting, just different.
(Hm, actually, it’s occurring to me that some atypicals I’ve known still had the whole orbiter hierarchy thing going on, and tended to end up sleeping with the highest-dominant jerks in their group… just reasonably intelligent jerks. This behavior pattern seems to be more correlated with whether a woman is found attractive by a lot of guys, rather than whether she’s neurotypical per se.)
Are you going to publish, or at least blog, on this subject? As someone who downplays the importance of gender, I would like to see my assumptions flipped on their head.
It occurs to me that just as there are “naturals” that appeal more to typical women there are likely “naturals” that appeal more to atypical women. I never thought about it before since one usually measures one’s attractiveness on the majority’s terms but I might actually be a natural of the latter type and not have ever realized it until this moment. Strange.
Yet I’ve actually met plenty of women who would fall into the minority gender-atypical taxon who do understand typical women, experience difficulties interacting with them, and are sympathetic to male difficulties interacting with these women. A female friend of my mine in college insists that “women are evil.” Another female friend (highly introverted and thing-oriented) once told me that she doesn’t like most women and can’t relate to them; she considers them annoying and full of drama.
Most of of my female friends fit this category. I can emphasise with what they are saying, I grew up with sisters, after all, and at times didn’t envy them their ‘friends’. Then nature of peer competition is differentiated somewhat between the sexes and the gender-atypical women I know are poorly suited to it. But being male I actually find I have far less of that sort of trouble, given that I am not often a direct competitor. That and I have the opportunity to use innocent flirtation to release some of the competitive tension without zero-sum conflict.
Yup, you are observant. Since poly women have more male-typical sexuality (polyamory, high sociosexuality) and nerdy women have more male-typical interests and psychology, I think I’m justified in locating the hypothesis of an underlying masculinization factor. This masculinization is probably biological (specifically, prenatal… and yes, I do have more research on this). I hypothesize that masculinization or feminization are some of the most important dimensions in personality and interests (which is consistent with mainstream psychology, though a bit non-PC) and I am working on figuring out the practical implications of those dimensions with respect to dating. So far, I’m ahead of the seduction community on this subject.
Your theories and (apparent) research match my own.
As for practical implications of those dimensions, and how they apply to gender atypical people, my understanding is mostly procedural and intuitive abstractions. And my theories are biased towards practical implications for me that, while they look like they could be more generally applicable, may not be. Thinking other people are more similar to ourselves than they are is a typical human failing (right up there next to thinking we’re unique, go figure).
One thing I have noticed is that what is described as ‘masculine and feminine’ sexuality seems to be more than one distinct concept. Some of those ‘polyamorous, nerdy women with male-typical interests and psychology’ execute clearly female instinctive patterns in a masculine way. So a concrete minded person with basic competence from the seduction material would think ‘masculine’, someone with more experience, more curiosity or more IQ may burst out laughing as they see the same patterns play out in an entirely different way. And ya know, while it can be easy to learn the rules which work with the gender-typical stereotype, learning to interact with those with a more distinct psychology is just a whole heap more fun! It’s more ‘real’.
I do hear “treat her like your bratty little sister” sometimes.
In other words, her point of view isn’t relevant—it’s a power relationship.
Is that how you treat your bratty little sister?
The dynamic actually being referred to is a loving relationship where neither party takes the other too seriously, and where “big bro” is expected to look out for and protect “little sis”, including at times possibly taking more care for her safety or long-term goals than she is, while not being moved by the occasional pout or tantrum. It’s also a dynamic where “big bro” tries to live up to his sister’s possibly-idealized image of him as the big strong guy looking out for her.
The purpose of the advice is to evoke an area of a man’s life where he may already have an experience of being a leader/protector to a loved female who he didn’t put on a distant pedestal of awe and fear. Not to put down women.
I’m an older sister. My sister wasn’t a brat, and I wasn’t a bully. I did take a little advantage on housework, and I think she’s still angry about it. However, I never tried to break down her self-respect.
How flexible is the “bratty little sister” model for coverinig situations where the sister is right?
However, I never tried to break down her self-respect.
I’ve never seen anyone advocate breaking down a woman’s self-respect, so I’m not clear on the relevance here either.
How flexible is the “bratty little sister” model for coverinig situations where the sister is right?
Brothers and sisters can disagree, can they not? Sister isn’t required to agree with brother, nor vice versa.
Think of it this way: right now, you appear to think that the problem is that if the guy pushes one way, then she has to go along with that.
Now, reverse the model: pretend that if she pushes one way, the guy has to go along with that.
That’s the mental model most men (AFC’s or Average Frustrated Chumps in PUA lingo) have about relationships.
By default, “nice guys” think they have to agree with everything a woman says. This is especially the case if the woman is attractive to them, and they really want her to like him.
You might not think this is most men’s model… but that’s because most men don’t approach the women they’re attracted to in the first place! And the ones that do, tend to get written off as unattractive or not relationship material, precisely because they’re too eager to please, doing too much, “well, what do you want to do?”, etc.
PUA appears biased the other way, because it’s trying to train AFCs that they need to actually have an opinion of their own, and be able to maintain that opinion even when a woman they’re positively infatuated with disagrees.
Unfortunately, availability bias on the part of women means that you are going to think men are already too far biased this way, because the majority of the ones who come and hit on you in the first place are towards the further end of the wimpy-nice-confident-aggressive-asshole spectrum. PUA training is aimed at moving people at the low end of that scale towards the middle, not the high end off the scale.
In my view, there isn’t enough explicitly stated material on how to detect when the sister is in the right in PUA materials; some of my own thought processes on this subject is shown here. I do think that many experienced PUAs do figure out better intuition about when the sister is being genuinely bratty, whether she is deliberately testing him or simply displaying her natural personality, or if she has some other motive, such as displaying serious objections or resistance to how the interaction is proceeding that require him to adjust his approach or back off entirely.
This process of adjusting one’s behavior based on the woman’s responses is called “calibration,” and it is hard to teach through explicit description (which is why experienced PUAs often roll their eyes at how beginners go through phases of weird or otherwise undesirable behavior until they learn the correct calibration and how to interpret the teachings of the community). Some experienced PUAs will apologize to women if they judge that they have badly “miscalibrated.”
It’s nice to see that PUAs are working on this angle. It’s cheering to think that paying attention to what you’re doing leads to more benevolent behavior.
And it’s very interesting from an FAI angle that calibration isn’t programmatic. I’ve been trying to work up convincing arguments that an FAI will have to do ongoing attention and updating in order to treat people well.
Some experienced PUAs will apologize to women if they judge that they have badly “miscalibrated.”
For anyone who prefers equal relationships (and I’ve seen some happy marriages which look pretty equal), even the experienced PUAs have awful defaults (it takes experience to learn to apologize at all, only some PUAs do it, and it’s only for bad mistakes), and it’s scary to think about the men who haven’t done that much work.
I think one piece of it is a cultural problem (maybe hard-wired, but I hope not) of figuring out how to apologize without it having the effect of grovelling for either person.
For anyone who prefers equal relationships (and I’ve seen some happy marriages which look pretty equal), even the experienced PUAs have awful defaults (it takes experience to learn to apologize at all, only some PUAs do it, and it’s only for bad mistakes), and it’s scary to think about the men who haven’t done that much work.
Yes, it takes newbie PUAs time to learn to recognize when they have made social errors, and to learn which errors are bad enough that they should apologize for. But in this regard, PUAs are just the same as everyone else. They are just learning these social lessons later in life, while most people learned them through their normal socialization in childhood and adolescence.
Trust me, PUAs don’t want to be going through trial-and-error to learn during adulthood what everyone else learned during puberty, but it’s really not their fault that they have to do this. The typical reasons that they have ended up in this situation is because they got locked out of a normal social development by exclusion, bullying, or abuse by peers or parents during their formative development.
Sociologist Brian Gilmartin did a study of men with debilitating shyness in heterosexual interactions in the late 80′s, and found a high rate of peer and/or family victimization experienced by these men during their formative years. Furthermore, he found a high rate of gender-atypical traits in his sample. “Love-shy” men were disproportionately introverted, prone to anxiety, and non-neurotypical. Gilmartin argues that males with those traits may be capable of a positive social development in the right environment, but that American culture is unfriendly to males with these traits:
Let me illustrate with some insights derived from findings reported
in various parts of this book. In American society there is an irrational
albeit near ubiquitous learned tendency on the part of most young adults
to associate the very thought of “boy” with the thought of a natural,
inborn enthusiasm for baseball, football, and basketball. Thus my find-
ings clearly show that those boys who best fit this stereotyped expec-
tation quickly come to possess the strongest interpersonal skills and the
lowest incidence of love-shyness. On the other hand, my data also show
that those boys who fit this stereotype least well include among their
members the highest incidence of intractable love-shyness combined
with a history of inadequate socialization for interpersonal skills and
social self-confidence. Girls without a natural enthusiasm for such rough,
contact sports do not suffer negative outcomes as a result. A liking for
such sports is considered (at best) optional for them, and it is not nor-
matively prescribed as it is for boys.
It is through the cumulative tenor of the responses of others, par-
ticularly parents and peers, that a child decides whether it is intelligent or
stupid, attractive or homely, lovable or unlovable, competent or incom-
petent, worthy of social companionship or worthless in this regard. If
a male child is born in America with an innate temperament that places
him high up in the melancholic quadrant (quadrant #1) of the Eysenck
Cross, and if this native temperament with its concomitants of very low
pain and anxiety thresholds, nervousness and inhibition/introversion,
cause him to constantly avoid the rough and tumble play of the all-male
peer group (and not physically defend himself against its assaults), that
child is highly likely to develop a very low social self-image along with
a case of intractable shyness.
Such a development is NEVER a necessary consequence of such an
inborn temperament. There is nothing intrinsically “unhealthy” about
being an emotional introvert per se. But insofar as within the American
social context such a temperament is likely to serve as a stimulus for
consistent and continual bullying, ignoring and rejection on the part of
the peer group and expressed disappointment and disapproval on the
part of parents (especially fathers), shyness together with a low self-
esteem, a “people-phobia”, and poor interpersonal skills are all highly
likely to develop.
p. 82:
And so it is with the little boy who is high on inborn introversion/ inhibition and high on inborn emotionality. If left alone to the ravages of the conventional all-boy peer group he will almost certainly become love-shy and lonely without the interpersonal skills that are indispensable for effective, happy survival. If, on the other hand, that little boy is introduced to an alternative peer group composed of little boys and girls who are reasonably similar to himself in native temperament and if that little boy is introduced to games and sports that will not frighten him or inspire any sort of bullying, then the chances are exceedingly good that he will be headed for psychoemotional and social adjustment. In fact, as Alexander Thomas has shown, such a little boy’s chances for
success will actually be about as good as those of children who had been
born with more advantaged inborn temperaments.
The social problems described by Gilmartin’s work are on the more extreme end of what many PUAs describe. Yet what it shows is that many PUAs are essentially abuse survivors of various sorts who are currently trying to learn the social skills that they could have learned in adolescence if they hadn’t spent their adolescence being abused, excluded, or isolated due to having non-stereotypically masculine traits or being non-neurotypical.
Does that mean that anything goes in their attempts to “catch up” socially? Of course not. These men should still exercise common sense, and people who are teaching them should encourage it. Yet since the social intuitions of these men are under-developed due their negative developmental experiences, it is inevitable that they will make mistakes. If they played completely safe, they might lower the amount of mistakes they made, but they would miss out on important developmental lessons.
This does make more sense out of PUA. Thank you for posting it.
For anyone who prefers equal relationships (and I’ve seen some happy marriages which look pretty equal), even the experienced PUAs have awful defaults (it takes experience to learn to apologize at all, only some PUAs do it, and it’s only for bad mistakes), and it’s scary to think about the men who haven’t done that much work.
Yes, it takes newbie PUAs time to learn to recognize when they have made social errors, and to learn which errors are bad enough that they should apologize for. But in this regard, PUAs are just the same as everyone else. They are just learning these social lessons later in life, while most people learned them through their normal socialization in childhood and adolescence.
Where you’re putting the emphasis on the end state, I’m seeing a description of men who are barely capable of apologizing at all. I gather PUA is especially for men who feel they ought to be apologizing all the time.
Part of what’s going on here is group loyalty issues. My defaults are the ill-effects on women of harassment and abuse, and yours are men who got pushed to the bottom of the hierarchy. From my point of view, you see women as just the material for you guys to learn on.
You mention that the quotes from the article are the extreme end of what PUAs at the extreme end of what PUAs have experienced. Would you care to give me some idea of the range?
One piece is something which I probably need to work on. It’s very tempting for me to see a creepy guy as really creepy all the way down, so that what seems like more attractive behavior is just a ploy.
I’m willing to bet that PUA generally can’t be framed as trauma recovery because you believe (perhaps rightly) that a man can’t do well socially while admitting to that sort of damage.
I’m wondering if “normal” people need to do this much damage for the sake of their own functioning. Cruelty seems to be strongly reinforcing for a significant proportion of people.
Gilmartin argues that males with those traits may be capable of a positive social development in the right environment, but that American culture is unfriendly to males with these traits:
I came at it from fat acceptance, but it was rather a shock to realize that my native culture is meaner than hell.
I gather PUA is especially for men who feel they ought to be apologizing all the time.
Yes, exactly. This is probably the bit that causes the most problems—women think PUA advocates that all the jerky guys who already bother them become even jerkier, when it’s actually about getting nice guys to stop being apologetic for even existing within the perceptual range of a female.
I’m willing to bet that PUA generally can’t be framed as trauma recovery because you believe (perhaps rightly) that a man can’t do well socially while admitting to that sort of damage.
Right—men are shamed for not being able to deal with it, in the same way that you were shamed for being angry.
That being said, PUA is framed as recovery, to a certain extent, but with a more positive spin—“it’s not about getting women, it’s about becoming better men” is a common saying among people who’ve spent a nontrivial amount of time interacting with their PUA peers, or who’re involved in doing training.
It’s very tempting for me to see a creepy guy as really creepy all the way down, so that what seems like more attractive behavior is just a ploy.
If you look at what PUA training products are for sale in the marketplace, and how they’re priced, you’ll notice that the difference between cheap training and expensive training is mostly about the difference between cheap tricks, and becoming a more confident, expressive, person. (On the in-between pricing levels, there’s training about style, logistics, approaches, etc.)
This isn’t accidental—it reflects the normal path of guys’ interest. The further along someone gets in their education, the more interested they are in changing who they are, rather than in just learning some magical pickup lines, or ways to dress and stand so as not to look creepy.
If you think that PUAs are creepy guys who just want to manipulate women and get laid, consider the fact that they’re willing to pay $200 just to learn to appreciate women better!
Heck, just read the first bullet point from that sales page:
How most guys are strangers to their own emotions, and therefore can’t relate to a woman’s emotions. Discover how to open up to your OWN emotions, and watch your connections with women deepen, immediately.
Does that sound like something that would even remotely appeal to the stereotype you have in mind of what a “PUA” is?
Sure, I’m cherrypicking an example—AMP are the only people I know of who position their marketing that clearly. Most of the sales literature for similar training is shrouded in more mystery, or in language that makes things sound a lot more like you’re going to become this awesome stud, until you look at the actual program synopsis or read reviews
But AMP is far from the only company training “inner”, “natural”, and “direct” game styles (all of which emphasize personal transformation, and open/honest communication). And some of those other companies are making millions. Annually.
Which means it’s not really the narrow niche you think it is. Availability bias and controversy creates distorted views.
Look, I was trying to take Silas’ belligerent meta level attack, and extract from it a object level argument for his position. It was not unreasonable for me to expect him to back up the supporting claim I identified before accepting it though. Then you claimed that this claim can be justified as common knowledge, and that was what I was arguing against in my previous comment.
I really am open to evidence on this. But I am frustrated by the unreasonable meta level attacks on motivations.
And I’m frustrated by your refusal to assimilate the lessons of You are entitled to evidence, but not that particular proof. Of course there won’t be perfect, side-by-side examples we can compare, but we have to update on what we see, imperfect, or not. Before we get into a game of “why I get to ignore that evidence”, I need to establish what kinds of things would count as evidence, even if they aren’t ideal comparisons.
I asked to you to extrapolate out from the example I did give and ask what the reaction would be if EY’s story extended to discussion of equally “useful”, thorough techniques the male and female did to enhance attraction. As best I can tell, you dodged having to consider the logical implications of the hypothetical and instead preferred a test stacked in your favor, which assumes what you’re trying to prove.
If you’re frustrated, perhaps you can understand why I’m frustrated, and why I start positing theories for “what’s really going on here”, which you take offense at, but which are then vindicated when you bring up irrelevant comparisons as if they were part and parcel of the issue I was arguing about.
ETA: I have not been belligerent; I want to know if there’s a broader issue we need to be discussing. Right or wrong, I have good reason to believe so. If I were trying to “explain” your arguments by reference to your mental health, that would be belligerent and offensive. But I would never dream of offering such an explanation. There’s nothing offensive about suggesting there’s a broader underlying issue; rather, it’s often the key insight to resolving a dispute.
And I’m frustrated by your refusal to assimilate the lessons of You are entitled to evidence, but not that particular proof.
That is a really weird response to my attempt to extract from your post a different sort of evidence than what I had been asking for.
I am willing to to consider arguments that the comparisons are reasonable. I have explained that I am willing to consider such evidence.
I do note, however, that the side by side examples of both sorts of discussion in the same tone and style, both provoked no offense.
I asked to you to extrapolate out from the example I did give
I don’t update on hypothetical evidence. This is essentially asking me to assume the thing you are trying to support. My extrapolation is that they both become offensive at the same point. I don’t think that point is even including useful information. It is advocating the use of that information to manipulate people to do things they would not endorse if they understood what was going on. I don’t like making these predictions though because I don’t have much evidence to go on.
I have not been belligerent; I want to know if there’s a broader issue we need to be discussing.
Bringing it up the first time is an understandable mistake. You continued to push it after I informed you that your theory of me was wrong.
Though the thing I called belligerent was you accusing me of not updating on a point that you had not brought up. Don’t you think it would be better to just present that point as one of the reasons for your suspicion? Would you like to put the meta level argument behind us and discuss it on the object level? I am willing to treat the larger world as reference class that has implications for Less Wrong. I don’t accept the claim as common knowledge though, so you will have substantiate it by, for example, pointing to people’s actual observed behavior.
The evidence PJEby provides here seems to support symmetry in reactions to the two sorts of discussion.
I asked to you to extrapolate out from the example I did give
I don’t update on hypothetical evidence. …
Great! Because I wasn’t asking you to do such a thing. I was looking for a point of common agreement from which I could ground further arguments. (That’s a normal way to resolve disagreements.)
Bringing it up the first time is an understandable mistake. You continued to push it after I informed you that your theory of me was wrong.
You’re kidding—you’re upset that I wouldn’t take your self-serving statements at face value? All evidence shows I was exactly right. Like I explained to you once already, you presented this argument as contradicting my position, when in fact it contradicts a different one that I wasn’t arguing for (and don’t hold a contrary position on). This establishes that you see the issues as being related by a common factor … exactly what I expected the whole time, and exactly the factor we should have been directing our attention toward early on.
The evidence PJEby provides here seems to support symmetry in reactions to the two sorts of discussion.
Well, just like you can’t update on hypothetical evidence, you can’t claim your position is based on arguments you weren’t even aware of until later. If you actually had such evidence in mind, you had numerous opportunities to present it, but you decided that you were “just curious why you should even be considering my position”. It’s a little late to claim that pjeby’s points were motivating your objections, don’t you think?
Silas, you’re spending too much time talking about JGWeissman here. In his last post he offered to drop all meta points in this discussion and focus on object-level reality. If you think you’re right about the issues accept his offer and move the discussion there.
This particular post is moving into sarcastic flamewar territory.
In his last post he offered to drop all meta points in this discussion and focus on object-level reality. If you think you’re right about the issues accept his offer and move the discussion there.
Wow, there is some serious miscommunication going on here. Maybe because I’m not using the keywords? Let’s give that a try:
I agree that we should switch to the object level. But which object level? This discussion started on the object level issue of:
1) What is Silas’s basis for suspecting (i.e. having a slightly tilted prior) that, between beauty-to-men and PUA-to-female biases, the latter will be more often unjustifiably hindered?
JGW showed a strange obsession with getting a lot of evidence from me to justify this suspicion. I inferred therefore that it’s just one facet of a broader, important issue on which the larger community should be having a discussion. Despite his firm (but self-serving) denial, he eventually revealed what issue he had in mind:
2) Which gender, if any, is more manipulated/ manipulating/ repressed, and in what way?
During the course of all of this, another object-level discussion arose, similar to 1):
3) Can men get the same quality of advice for making themselves attractive to women that women do for men?
So which object-level discussion do you want?
1) is a minor, unimportant issue (one person’s slightly tilted prior, in whch he wants to be proven wrong by future discussions? come on!) 2) is an issue I have no particular interest in at the moment. 3) is already having a robust discussion, in which I’m engaged.
So, what specifically should I be doing differently?
ETA: Okay, you folks will need to be a little more specific than a downmod; such an answer is somewhat vague here.
The evidence PJEby provides here seems to support symmetry in reactions to the two sorts of discussion.
Well, just like you can’t update on hypothetical evidence, you can’t claim your position is based on arguments you weren’t even aware of until later.
I have updated my position, from suspecting symmetry as the default case, to having moderate strength belief that the symmetry holds, mostly as a result of Eby’s description of the symmetry which is much better than I could have done at the start of this discussion. I am more interested in figuring out if there is a symmetry, and what its nature is, than in arguing whether I was right from the beginning. If I always find that I am right from the beginning, I am probably not correctly evaluating whether I was right.
I brought that up as object level evidence of my position, not as evidence that my initial position was justified by my subjective state at the time. Because I really am serious about my offer to put behind us all the meta level issues, and focus on the object level. The offer still stands. Or, if you like, you can say you don’t care if such an asymmetry exists, and we can drop the whole thing.
I am more interested in figuring out if there is a symmetry, and what its nature is, … Because I really am serious about my offer to put behind us all the meta level issues, and focus on the object level.
Sounds good. Please refer to the arguments I’ve presented in my exchange with pjeby, which are here and in the surrounding discussion.
(Note how I’m not hounding you to give me 100:1-likelihood-ratio evidence to justify your initial suspicion of symmetry. Cause that would just be wrong, you know?)
For example, with “negging”, the PUA starts with the bottom line “You should feel self-conscious and insecure”, and then seeks only evidence that supports this conclusion.
Actually, the function of a neg is not to induce insecurity, but to disarm. Mystery’s original goal was to create a method of seducing what he calls “exceptionally beautiful women”, who are often surrounded by hordes of supplicant males flattering their beauty.
The function of the neg in this context was to show that Mystery was not applying for membership in the woman’s puppy dog pack, and thereby signaling a higher status than those other males, as well as indicating that she would need more than her physical attractiveness in order to interest him.
It also served an additional purpose of preventing both the “target” and her friends (male or female) from being initially aware of his interest in her, to keep them from engaging in whatever stereotyped defensive behaviors they might have for discouraging people from hitting on her.
The actual effect of a neg may include insecurity, but the intended effect is to make the PUA appear “hard to get”, and therefore more attractive… even if only as a challenge to the woman’s “game”. Mystery’s “jealousy plots” are a similar class of maneuver.
In any case, outside the context of “exceptionally beautiful woman” (who knows she’s desirable) with a pack of friends and/or “orbiters”, the use of actual “negs” are counterindicated. David DeAngelo’s “cocky funny”, or RSD’s “self-amusement” concepts are more generally applicable in such cases, and a neg is really just an intensified version of the playful teasing of those other methods, for a specific field of application.
[By the way, this is not an endorsement of any of these methods by me, just an attempt to correct a (common) misunderstanding about negs. If you’ve watched Mystery’s TV show, you might be aware that some aspiring PUAs are also under the impression that a neg is an insult to lower self-esteem… and you may have also seen just how horribly wrong things actually go when you try to use it that way. ;-) ]
Actually, the function of a neg is not to induce insecurity, but to disarm.
My point is only that the neg is an example of bottom-lining. First you decide that you will convince her of something that will have certain effects on her. Then you decide on the evidence that you will highlight to convince her of this.
My point is only that the neg is an example of bottom-lining. First you decide that you will convince her of something that will have certain effects on her. Then you decide on the evidence that you will highlight to convince her of this.
I’m confused. ISTM that Mystery’s primary intention (as stated very frequently by him) is to convey the message, “I am not like other men”. Everything about his behavior and appearance is tailored to communicate that message, and as a result, it is true. He is not like other men, in his appearance and behavior, unless they are imitating him.
Second, suppose that I want you to buy my songs. if I want to convince you that my music is good, then the honest way to do so is to figure out what you like in music, and then to make music with those qualities. But note that there’s no bottom-lining here. When you get the song, you will ideally listen to it first, and then draw the conclusion that it’s good.
Mystery’s “song” is (accurately) portraying himself as a quirky nonconformist who requires more than beauty to impress him.
The real flaw in Mystery’s method is not that the behavior itself is wrong, but that his systematic disassembly and reassembly of large- and small-scale behavior patterns is not a good teaching method for getting people to be attractive, because the act of transmission via breaking down and reassembling inevitably communicates and reinforces various wrong things.
In effect, the breakdown mechanicalizes people and reduces authenticity until someone develops enough confidence of their own—fake it till you make it, so to speak. The problem is that then some people never get past faking it, and the actual faking may be questionable.
In essence, Mystery asked, “what behaviors do I need to perform to attract women?”, and used this same question to inform his training of others.
But the people who are these days rebuilding Mystery’s training methods, have been asking a different, and much better question: “how do I become the kind of person who naturally exhibits the kind of behaviors that (the kind of ) women (I’d be interested in) find attractive?”
Modern methods emphasize identifying the mental and physical characteristics of your ideal mate (“your true 10” in DYD-speak, or your “blueprint woman” in RSD-speak), as a prelude to identifying what sort of man to become… which is more analagous to finding out what kind of music someone likes, so you can play it for them.
Mystery’s real problem, however, was not that he didn’t identify the target audience for his “music”, or that he didn’t try to play the kind of “music” he observed that audience responding to. It’s that he was operating from an assumption that he wasn’t good enough in himself, and that therefore he needed to mimic attractive behaviors, rather than simply becoming attractive himself. To resume your music analogy, it’s as though he believed he needed to lipsync the music of others, rather than to learn to actually “sing” himself.
The larger PUA community, I think (or at least the thought leaders), have come to the conclusion that, despite Mystery’s immense contributions to the analysis and understanding of the social dynamics of meeting and relating to people in nightclubs, this assumption of inferior status and value as a starting point to interaction (because initially, Mystery’s situation was one of needing to lift himself from an inferior status), was a serious mistake that drove the community in bad directions and reinforced the insecurity and immaturity of many, rather than helping them to face and overcome those issues.
Your post is consistent with my understanding, also.
Mystery’s real problem, however, was not that he didn’t identify the target audience for his “music”, or that he didn’t try to play the kind of “music” he observed that audience responding to.
Furthermore, Mystery’s model of women is biased towards the modal female extravert. Since he based most of his understanding of women on his club interactions, he was vulnerable to the availability heuristic. (Look! We are talking about rationality and pickup!)
It is indeed important to understand the modal/median/average women, but unless you actually want to date the type of woman, you need to understand other types of women, also. Yet the view of women in the community seems a bit over-homogenized towards the types of women that PUAs encounter most often.
Furthermore, I think part of the reason that some PUAs sound cynical or patronizing when they talk about women is that PUAs are not the average male. They are probably higher than average in intelligence and introversion, yet they are comparing female extraverts of average intelligence to themselves and finding them lacking; this is an unfair comparison.
Are the women they’re attracted to of average intelligence? I can see arguments pointing in four directions. The 9s and 10s are of average intelligence—it’s the null hypothesis. They’re smarter than average—if appearing maximally attractive takes some skill (and it does), then g should help. They’re less intelligent than average—they’ve been coasting on their looks. They’re of average or above average intelligence, but choose to appear less intelligent so as not to put men off.
Are the women they’re attracted to of average intelligence?
Hey, I resent the implication that all PUAs are attracted to the same kind of women. ;-) (j/k—I resent nothing.)
However, PUA tastes in women are not all alike, at least if you look at their gurus as an indicator. My estimate is that David D seems to go for stability, intelligence, and class, Juggler values interesting and emotional conversation, Soporno seeks fun, sensuality, and maturity/depth. (My personal estimates based solely on information from their publicly available materials.)
Of course, there’s a lot of other gurus who only brag about their ability to pick up “hot” women, or in Mystery’s case, “women of exceptional beauty”, and for them, intelligence doesn’t seem to be something they care about one way or the other.
I suspect this has more to do with these men seeking Status from their ability to “get” these women, rather than seeking the Affiliation and Stimulation of the women’s company. (As is more clearly the case with some of the other gurus I mentioned.)
Furthermore, Mystery’s model of women is biased towards the modal female extravert
Modal?
It is indeed important to understand the modal/median/average women
Oh, I guess you mean “typical”, as opposed to atypical. I thought maybe it was a typo for “model”, since Mystery’s aim was reported to include models, bartenders, strippers, hostesses and other “women hired for their beauty”.
Which kind of underscores your point in an odd way—his observations were NOT based on “average” women at all, but on neurotypical extroverts of above-average appearance.
Which kind of underscores your point in an odd way—his observations were NOT based on “average” women at all, but on neurotypical extroverts of above-average appearance.
Yes, my broader point is that a lot of the observations of PUAs are based on the women they meet the most often. The type of women they meet the most often is club-goers of above average attractiveness. The average intelligence of these women is likely to be around the population average, they are probably above average in extraversion, and they have highly “people-oriented” interests (and they may well be above average in neuroticism and below average in conscientiousness).
These female phenotypes may be common, but there are plenty of other female phenotypes that are less well understand by PUAs. Furthermore, the phenotypes of female club-goers are massively, massively different from the phenotypes of PUAs, who are probably 1-2 standard deviations above the mean in intelligence, above average in introversion, and “thing-oriented” rather than “people-oriented” in their interests (many PUAs might not even be completely neurotypical).
So when we see PUAs holding cynical attitudes towards women, such as “chick crack,” or talking about women as children or pets (these last attitudes are rare, but not unheard of), we should consider that they are unfairly comparing average women to themselves. When PUAs talk about women like they are a different species, perhaps it is because average-intelligence people-oriented female extraverts do seem like a different species from 130 IQ thing-oriented male introverts.
If PUAs were to be interacting with women more psychometrically similar, perhaps they wouldn’t experience the feelings of alienation from women that so many currently do, and which women find off-putting in their speech. Furthermore, my experience is that once I started interacting with women who weren’t 1-2 standard deviations different from me on most major psychometric traits, a lot of the “problems” I was having interacting with women (e.g. not being sufficiently extraverted and dominant) suddenly vanished.
Yet I am reluctant to blame PUAs for not going after women who are like them. First, these women are harder to find, since they are introverts and less likely to go to clubs. Second, I have good reasons to believe that there are simply less nerdy women than nerdy men, for any reasonable operationalization of “nerdy.” There is not a nerdy girl for every nerdy guy.
I find it perfectly understandable that PUAs are basing their models of women on the women that it is easiest for them to find, but I do wish there was a bit more emphasis on building a model of the type of woman that you want and figuring out where to find her. Day game is certainly progress in that direction, and I’ve also had some good results with online dating.
I have good reasons to believe that there are simply less nerdy women than nerdy men
I’d be interested to hear them. I’m aware of the stereotype but not any evidence (other than perhaps dubious IQ data).
Other than that, your comment matches my impressions. I have in the past seen nerdy friends of mine go to bars “to meet women”, and had to ask, “Why would you do that? You’ll just meet women who like going to bars!”
Also, I’ve found that most people seem stupid, so I imagine if I were the sort of person who specifically aimed to meet lots of women, I’d likewise form the impression that most women are stupid. It seems like an easy mistake of generalization for someone with nerdy male friends and average female acquaintances to think “women are stupid”; there but for the grace of FSM go I.
Yet I am reluctant to blame PUAs for not going after women who are like them. First, these women are harder to find, since they are introverts and less likely to go to clubs. Second, I have good reasons to believe that there are simply less nerdy women than nerdy men, for any reasonable operationalization of “nerdy.” There is not a nerdy girl for every nerdy guy.
I find it perfectly understandable that PUAs are basing their models of women on the women that it is easiest for them to find, but I do wish there was a bit more emphasis on building a model of the type of woman that you want and figuring out where to find her. Day game is certainly progress in that direction, and I’ve also had some good results with online dating.
On reflection, I’m not sure “women who are easy to find” is a such a good excuse. They haven’t seen intelligent women in their families or classes?
I realize it’s hard to notice things that you aren’t in the habit of noticing, and I make a serious effort not to insult people for ignorance—if you don’t know something, you don’t know it. Still, I wish these guys could notice that “women are stupid” is an idea which is likely to be self-reinforcing.
And it’s harder to pay attention to other factors when you’re in an environment which includes a lot of supernormal stimuli.
I take your last point in a somewhat different direction—if you don’t know what you want, but you’re trying to build yourself a good life, you’ll be over-influenced by status considerations.
Such PUA techniques should be discussed like any other Dark Side methods: with a view towards minimizing their use and effectiveness.
I have no desire to minimize the use or effectiveness of techniques women use to enhance their beauty. Or were you not considering that a ‘Dark Side’ method?
I think the ‘Dark Side’ sometimes gets an overly bad rap around here. I wish to understand the techniques so I can avoid being manipulated into doing things that are against my broader interests and I would prefer to see less use of dubious techniques for persuasion in discussions that are supposed to be truth-seeking but I wouldn’t want to see all ‘manipulative’ techniques disappear completely. Sometimes I enjoy being emotionally ‘manipulated’, whether by art (movies, music, paintings, literature) or by deliberate suspension of disbelief in personal interactions. Being a rationalist should not require turning oneself and the world into the ‘Spock’ stereotype.
I have no desire to minimize the use or effectiveness of techniques women use to enhance their beauty. Or were you not considering that a ‘Dark Side’ method?
Not all PUA techniques are examples of Dark Side Epistemology, nor are all beauty-enhancing techniques. Some, however, are.
Could you elaborate on what you consider the dividing line to be? Is it merely the awareness of the target of the techniques being employed? I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that as a dividing line: I enjoy music and the effect it has on my emotions despite not being sufficiently knowledgeable about music to understand the mechanics of how to achieve a particular emotional effect. I am aware such techniques exist but I don’t know the details. Similarly with female beauty enhancement. I’m more aware of the techniques film makers use to manipulate emotions because I have spent quite a lot of time learning about them but when enjoying a film in the moment I do not wish to consciously focus on them.
Could you elaborate on what you consider the dividing line to be?
I think that the best heuristic is to look for bottom-lining. Have you decided on what you want to convince her of before you have determined what evidence you will selectively show her to bring her to that conclusion? If so, you might be practicing dark side epistemology.
I don’t think that the case with music is the same in general. First, merely convincing you to like something is different from convincing you that something is true. Merely convincing you to think that I’m attractive is one thing. Inducing you to do so by convincing you that there’s something strange about how your hair looks is another.
Second, suppose that I want you to buy my songs. if I want to convince you that my music is good, then the honest way to do so is to figure out what you like in music, and then to make music with those qualities. But note that there’s no bottom-lining here. When you get the song, you will ideally listen to it first, and then draw the conclusion that it’s good.
I think that the best heuristic is to look for bottom-lining. Have you decided on what you want to convince her of before you have determined what evidence you will selectively show her to bring her to that conclusion? If so, you might be practicing dark side epistemology.
This is an interesting argument, but I don’t think that you can hold the same standards of epistemic rationality to matters of social perception. To a large extent, coolness, social status, and attractiveness are subjective qualities that depend on the perception of others. The Earth will not become flatter because you persuade a lot of people that it is flat, but if you can persuade a lot of people that you are cool, then you probably really are cool (general “you,” of course).
There is nothing wrong with deciding in advance what “bottom line” conclusion you want people to hold about you (e.g. that you are cool, high status, or attractive), because if you successfully behave in way that influences people to have that perception, then it often magically becomes true, making your original behavior legitimate. Even if you are a shy person adopting that behavior for the first time. At least, it is true in the context of interaction with those people. And if you fail to give them that perception (“this guy isn’t as cool as he thinks he is”), then no harm is done because they see through you.
There is nothing “dark side” about trying to act as cool, high status, or attractive as possible, and trying to push the limits (as long as this behavior isn’t based on lying or deception). People will either accept you as having those attributes, or they won’t. (The only ethical exception is in cases of actual lying or deception, such as about one’s job, age, finances, history, social position, etc… In this case, it does become meaningful to say that someone’s social perception of you can be based on false pretenses.)
The “truth” about your “real” status and attractiveness is not something that you yourself can decide in advance; at best, you only have a confidence interval. Since you don’t know where your “real” status and attractiveness lie, then you shouldn’t worry so much about deceiving people about it. Instead of trying to decide your status in advance and “protect” people from having an inflated perception of it, you should try to figure out your status by interacting with people and seeing what behavior others accept from you and respond well to (in more cynical terms, “see what you can get away with”). Other people are perfectly capable of protecting themselves from you acting too big for your britches.
People will tell you, explicitly or implicitly, how cool and attractive you are; there is no need for you to try to decide for them. I will hypothesize that this is how most normal people conduct social interaction, and there is nothing wrong with nerdy people knowingly replicating the same behavior even if it isn’t intuitive to them.
Social perception: the only place in the universe where perception actually is reality (at least, to a large degree).
I think that the best heuristic is to look for bottom-lining. Have you decided on what you want to convince her of before you have determined what evidence you will selectively show her to bring her to that conclusion? If so, you might be practicing dark side epistemology.
While that sounds nice in theory, it’s not realistic. In all human interaction people try to present their best attributes first. This is normal and generally harmless. In fact, most people would find it quite odd if when someone introduced themselves they instantly revealed their major self-perceived flaws. If you continue to withhold important information that you know is likely to be perceived negatively by another person over a long period then you start to cross a line that most people would consider unreasonable but I think you need to offer a more restrictive definition of what is considered the ‘dark side’ unless you want to rule out most normal human interaction.
It seems that ‘dark side’ gets used in two somewhat different ways here. What Eliezer describes in Dark Side Epistemology seems a narrower definition than is sometimes employed by others. I haven’t seen a clear definition of this broader meaning but it appears to include techniques that are calculated to produce a particular effect in the audience and incorporates the kinds of ‘tricks’ that artists use to make their works emotionally resonant and powerful.
It seems that ‘dark side’ gets used in two somewhat different ways here.
Dark Side Epistemology is something you do to yourself; the Dark Arts are methods you use on other people (or they use ’em on you). Unfortunately, the names are similar enough and human memory is buggy enough that it’s a name collision for most people.
Such PUA techniques should be discussed like any other Dark Side methods: with a view towards minimizing their use and effectiveness.
I feel compelled here to point out (even though you didn’t explicitly say otherwise, and I don’t mean to imply that you believe otherwise) that rationalists should win, which includes using (or encouraging, teaching, etc.) methods of anti-rational persuasion when doing so wins. I do agree that LW shouldn’t much discuss such things with an eye to using them.
Less importantly:
It seems to me that the situation is pretty simple, for PU artistry as well as for advertising. Most PUA techniques that I’ve seen amount to efforts to persuade using Dark Side Epistemology. bottom-lining is rampant. For example, with “negging”, the PUA starts with the bottom line “You should feel self-conscious and insecure”, and then seeks only evidence that supports this conclusion.
It doesn’t seem to me that PUA techniques are closely analogous to dark-side epistemology or bottom-line arguments; those things aim at influencing verbal beliefs (or beliefs-in-belief), while I would think that pickup largely aims at influencing emotions, aliefs, and cesires — System 1 stuff. (Your example is certainly much more an emotion/alief than a belief.)
I can’t say that I’ve ever seen women make as general claims for benevolence and good general effects for dressing up as I’ve seen made for PUA.
Afaik, woman either say they have fun doing it, and follow up with what’s wrong with that?, or they say they’re pushed into it because men want it. They don’t say they’re making men better off even if men say they don’t like it.
Also, (and this may be more interesting than the above), being resentful about women dressing up isn’t a mainstream modern point of view. It’s common in a number of religions and also showed up in communist China.
Afaik, woman either say they have fun doing it, and follow up with what’s wrong with that?, or they say they’re pushed into it because men want it. They don’t say they’re making men better off even if men say they don’t like it.
So they’re better at shielding themselves from awareness of its effect on men’s psyches? What difference does that make? A lot of naturals do exactly what PUAs do; it’s just that non-naturals don’t naturally do it, and have to be explained the reason why it works. A woman who just “feels like” making herself beautiful, as a good in and of itself, is therefore much like a natural male PUA: she instinctively does something that works, without understanding the broader context of why it works. (Level 1 in my hierarchy.)
Also, (and this may be more interesting than the above), being resentful about women dressing up isn’t a mainstream modern point of view. It’s common in a number of religions and also showed up in communist China.
Being resentful about being in the presence of overpoweringly attractive females that a male does not know how to appeal to is actually quite common. Perhaps it’s not widely discussed in these terms, but I guarantee it’s present in the legions who seek the advice of PUAs.
What is about PUA that makes it more concerning from a consent standpoint than, say, advertising?
There are some PUA techniques, at least, which only work on people who are not aware of them. There’s this funny passage in The Game which discusses how one group of guys is preemptively spoling another group’s pick-up lines at a party, and later on something along the same lines happens to the protagonist (it would be spoilerish to give any more detail).
By contrast I doubt that advertising agencies would suffer much if their techniques were exposed; the reason Avatar was so successful, I surmise, is simply that they saturated the public’s awareness with it, which only required a large cash outlay.
“Techniques which only work against you because you’re not aware of them” is one of the reasons for the PUA’s bad rap, I suspect. (There are others, such as insincerity, but that’ll have to be for another time.)
Assume that when someone finds out about a technique, they judge whether they think it ought to work on them or not, and adjust their behavior accordingly. If a technique doesn’t work when the subject is aware of it, that usually means that they would decide, for some reason, that they don’t want it to work. So if a technique works only when the subject is unaware of it, then using that technique is going against their preferences.
Pretty much. I like to contrast this with the techniques I use in sales meetings to guide the sale toward closing, which I not only don’t mind if my clients find out about them, I’m usually happy to feature them if the occasion arises.
“Sales techniques” is something that seems cringeworthy to many people—I’ve had more than one person confirm that. One of the happiest find in my careers as a freelance was this set of non-manipulative sales techniques.
Solution selling in particular was a watershed in turning me from an engineer into a (pretty successful) salesman while getting rid of any qualms I might have had about the transition. It helps a lot that what I’m selling is my own services and I happen to know what I’m good at; but that’s the point of solution selling.
There’s this funny passage in The Game which discusses how one group of guys is preemptively spoling another group’s pick-up lines at a party, and later on something along the same lines happens to the protagonist (it would be spoilerish to give any more detail).
FWIW, it’s the increasing frequency of such events occurring that has forced the evolution of “natural” methods, which aren’t vulnerable to such revelations. (Since they attempt mainly to modify the male’s personality and expressiveness, rather than teaching him ways to manipulate.)
I hate advertising with a passion and would avoid it, and all other sales techniques, if given the option. I also avoid locations and situations where PUA could be prevalent, but I think that might be a different matter.
One interesting data point would be the number of people who have had a sexual fantasy with non-consensual, mind control, or D/s themes, specifically with a desire to be the sub or victim. There are plenty of communities centered around these topics outside of PUA.
“My opinion is that LW shouldn’t be for PUA/beauty tips or how-to’s. But it would be appropriate to discuss why these methods work, under what conditions you’d want to resist them, and what countermeasures you can take. (And I suspect some don’t even want it to go this far, or want to restrict PUA more than beauty.)”
To clarify, I was promoting discussing PUA under this context, not FROM THE LENS of a working PUA. Certainly Pickup Artistry should never be actively encouraged on this site—there are way too many sites that handle this better than this one. But to discuss PUA from an observer’s lens—discuss its merits and its pitfalls—I don’t see why this type of discussion would drive individuals away unless the majority of the discussion turned into nonsense.
I think discussing PUA is going to attract a lot of individuals, and the right kind of individual. As long as the community continues to discuss this highly controversial topic in a rationalist manner, then other would-be rationalists are going to be find that unique and hopefully interesting. It’s when controversial topics are viewed in a rationalist light that you truly shine a beacon declaring, “We are mindful. Not mindless.”
If the discussion truly devolves then it should be a banned topic.
I would say that the equally offense-laden parallel for PUA would be methods for getting men to commit. I don’t know whether they’ve been as carefully studied as PUA—at a minimum, it’s a harder subject because the cost of experiments is higher.
Well, whether it’s been researched or not, it’s certainly being sold:
“At Last… A Fail-Safe Way To Naturally
Move From A “Casual” Situation With
A Man To A Deeply Committed,
Long-Term Relationship… Without
Experiencing All Of The Resistance, Withdrawal And Ups -And—Downs
That Come From Not Knowing
Where Things Are Going
And If You’ll End Up Together…”
On a side note… I actually was at a conference where the guy who writes the sales material for the above products discussed the psychology of their advertising methods for using women’s fears of “dying alone” to drive sales, as an example for how to identify and exploit irrational fears in general.
So yes, advertising is definitely researched at least as much as PUA, especially by PUAs-turned advertisers. (“Christian Carter/Catch Him And Keep Him” is a brand owned by the same company that owns “David DeAngelo/Double Your Dating”—both are character/stage names, like “Sara Lee” or “Ronald McDonald”. And the names are alliterative for reasons that were also discussed at that conference...)
I think the key question is the difference between visitors and regulars—we’d like more people to be active, not just show up. Does controversy actually bring in all that many people who stay?
Valid concern. I don’t know how to get more people active, but it couldn’t hurt to get more people aware of this community.
The more people you attract, the more likely some percentage of those people will continue to becoming active, contributing members. Everyone starts out as a visitor. Only a few of those end up becoming regulars. If you get more visitors, your regulars proportionally should rise.
Contrariwise, the worse a first impression you leave, the fewer visitors will remain long enough to become regulars. It is not a priori obvious which effect is the stronger.
Personally, I think controversy is more interesting than not. The internet keeps proving this over and over again. So if you want to attract more females, KEEP TALKING ABOUT THEM.
Getting offended is one way to get started on a rationalist path because it evokes an emotion. It evokes an inner-conflict. Which can result to greater self-understanding. Offending people is fine. Since it reflects more badly on the offensive person than on the offended person. It might even reflect badly on this community as a whole, but hey, if it gets people to start thinking, what’s so bad? If it gets women to understand something about themselves? What’s so bad?
However I would try to balance it out by ALSO examining men in such a way. There’s a lot of literature on PUA, and it is actively discussed here. Why not just find proven methods for attracting men and discuss them also? In a rationalist fashion, of course. If it offends the men on the site, then… all the better. Men need a wake-up call, too.
The topic of PUA seems to suffer from the Streisand effect around here. Mentioning reasons people shouldn’t talk about it gets people talking about it, as evidenced by this now quite long, and expanding, thread, and most of the previous threads as well.
I deleted my initial comment here since I didn’t want to contribute. Now I’d say to others that non-engagement may be a better strategy.
Rather than non-engagement, I would advise dependency management: if there is a topic we find it difficult to inquire into, switch priorities to observing and discussing why we find it difficult to have the object-level discussion.
I think I can solve the mystery: people keep bringing up PUA because they like thinking and talking about sex and things related to sex.
The only reason it “appears to be relevant” is this weak relationship to dark side epistemology that everyone keeps mentioning. But I haven’t seen a ‘dark side’ discussion, separate from sex, in a long while.
If politics is the mind-killer, then what is an even more fundamental drive?
I believe it was originally brought up in a discussion about instrumental rationality—applying rationality to achieve concrete goals rather than as empty discussion. It was in the same vein as Alicorn’s luminosity sequence (applying rationality to improve life outcomes) as opposed to the more abstract discussions over things like Newcomb’s problem.
If rationality is supposed to be about winning then it should be possible to use rationality to improve outcomes in areas of life that you place value on. Most humans place high value on sex and relationships and so instrumental rationalists will often be interested in applying rationality to improving outcomes in these areas. Do you disagree with some part of that line of reasoning or is it simply the specific approaches of ‘game’ that you disapprove of?
I think sex is worse than politics when it comes to mind-killing.
People undoubtedly have difficulty thinking rationally about sex but it does not suffer from many of the same mind-killing problems as politics. Instrumental rationality has very little use in the field of politics, other than obvious things like not voting and avoiding political discussion (unless you enjoy it for its own sake and don’t make the mistake of thinking it actually achieves anything).
The field of sex and relationships is much more amenable to the application or instrumental rationality in that there are things you can reasonably do that can impact your personal outcomes. There is very little most people are in a position to do to change policy. There is a great deal that individuals can do to improve their sex and relationship outcomes.
So do you think we should also share masturbation and fantasizing techniques (self-actualization) instead of continuing to focus solely on interpersonal relations (collective action problems)?
If someone had a novel application of instrumental rationality in these areas that solved a common problem I wouldn’t object to them sharing it, though I have difficulty imagining what that might look like.
I’ve always been more interested in the aspects of this site that focus more on instrumental rationality than in the abstract theorizing. I’m more interested in how to apply rationality to improve life outcomes I care about than in debates about what to do if Omega shows up with his boxes. I’m sick to death of discussions about Omega to be honest but I just don’t bother to read them rather than complaining about people who do want to talk about it.
I think you’re assuming that the things you like will work across a wide range of people.
Speaking as a woman who posts to LW, I’m not especially interested in PUA being discussed here unless there’s some consideration of consent issues. Those consent issues actually have some parallels to FAI problems—who decides whether someone is better off? By what standards?
I would say that the equally offense-laden parallel for PUA would be methods for getting men to commit. I don’t know whether they’ve been as carefully studied as PUA—at a minimum, it’s a harder subject because the cost of experiments is higher.
There’s an optimal level of controversy and offense for individuals (not necessarily the same for interest and for learning), and it probably isn’t the maximal level.
Because PUA comes off as dividing women into hackable systems and not worth hacking. If it’s too accepted, it can make it seem as though talking to you isn’t worth the trouble.
“Talking about women” isn’t enough. How they’re talked about matters.
This is a really interesting point, actually. What is about PUA that makes it more concerning from a consent standpoint than, say, advertising? Both are manipulative, and I see considerable parallels between the two. (I find it hard to believe that the big advertising firms have put less effort into figuring out how to get people to do things than pickup artists have...) Should advertising to someone require their consent? Is there a significant difference between product placement in entertainment media and PUA techniques that are based on normal conversations, as opposed to PUA techniques based on being in a traditional picking-up-dates scenario, which seem more like standard commercials? What does consent even mean in the context of situations like PUA or advertising where the point of the manipulation is to get you to say yes? Is it even possible to require consent to that kind of thing, without just pushing the problem back a level and having the manipulators focus on getting you to give your consent to be advertised/PUA’d to?
You’re considering whether advertising is problematic and/or should be legal without looking at whether people on the receiving end of advertising want it or benefit by it.
If someone wrote in Less Wrong about successful techniques of advertising, and said it must be a good thing because people buy what’s advertised, I don’t think it would go over entirely well.
Even before I’d read Rain’s comment, I was willing to bet that most LWers limit their exposure to advertising—not so much for political reasons or for fear of it, as just that it’s low information repetitive input. I admit I’m generalizing from myself on this one, though it’s worth noting that even the general public tends to avoid tv ads if they can.
One thing that’s clear from the akrasia and luminosity discussions is that not everything in people’s minds can be relied on to make their lives better. It’s reasonable to be concerned about inputs from people who are trying to influence your mind and have specific goals which do not include your welfare.
In the case of PUA, saying that some women like that approach (which is true), or that PUAs mean well (which is neither trustworthy [1] nor relevant) substitutes for a general follow-up on how women who’ve been PUAd perceive the experience later,.
At this stage, advertising may well be less effective than PUA—for most things, it isn’t personally directed. A small story—I know a person who used to sell stuffed dragons, and she said she sold them by finding the little part of the potential customer which wanted one ot the dragons, and (by implication) getting that part of the person to make the decision. She didn’t see any problems with that, but I later met someone who wouldn’t go near that woman’s table because of being afraid of getting talked into buying a dragon she didn’t want all that much.
Even if the sales effort had been more carefully constructed so that anyone who bought a stuffed dragon would not be capable of regretting it, there would be more consent issues, not fewer.
If advertising becomes that effective, I don’t know how this should be addressed legally or philosophically. I do think there are problems.
[1] Some PUAs start from a position of resenting women for turning them down.
At the risk of being seen standing up for low-status males, I feel obliged to point out that that’s not incompatible with “meaning well”.
It’s not incompatible with meaning well, but I wouldn’t recommend taking their word that they aren’t doing harm.
I don’t think this holds true for me. I am somewhat selective about what advertising I attend to but I don’t in general limit my exposure to it and I sometimes actively seek it out.
I tend to skip over adverts when viewing TV on my PVR because they are of low average quality, high density and are generally interrupting something I was actually interested in. On the other hand I will sometimes watch adverts that catch my attention when skipping through either because they are visually interesting or because they are providing information about something I am interested in.
There are a variety of adverts that I don’t avoid and may actively seek out. These include movie trailers for films I might be interested in watching, adverts that are notable for clever or dramatic visuals and adverts for products I am interested in purchasing. I’m interested in visual media in general and so find both filmed adverts and commercial photography interesting from that standpoint when the quality is high. I have purchased a number of DVD collections that include the advertising works of directors—many of todays most interesting film directors started out in advertising and music videos (which are a form of advertising). I also have photography books that include commercial photography.
In the age of the Internet there is a blurred line between advertising and product information and I’m not uncomfortable reading information in the blurred area, though I prefer clear disclosure of any commercial interests driving the material. I quite happily use a manufacturer’s website as one source of product information for products I am considering purchasing though and I also find that third party reviews can be valuable even when it is disclosed that the product was provided free to the reviewer or that there are other reasons to treat the opinions provided as not entirely unbiased.
In general I find advertising less problematic in terms of bias and manipulation than political speech or much journalism (which is very often just lightly disguised political speech).
In the case of women using beauty-enhancing techniques (high heels, push-up bras, make-up, hairstyling), saying that some men like that in women (which is true), or that women mean well (which is neither trustworthy [1] nor relevant) substitutes for a general follow-up on how men who’ve been allured perceive the experience later.
At this stage, advertising may well be less effective than sexy attire on women—for most things, it isn’t personally directed. …
If advertising becomes that effective, I don’t know how this should be addressed legally or philosophically. I do think there are problems.
[1] Some women start from a position of resenting men for not caring more about their personality.
I’m not sure that many would object to this analogy. It strengthens the case that sharing PUA techniques isn’t an appropriate use of LW, just as sharing beauty-enhancing techniques isn’t.
It seems to me that the situation is pretty simple, for PU artistry as well as for advertising. Most PUA techniques that I’ve seen amount to efforts to persuade using Dark Side Epistemology. Bottom-lining is rampant. For example, with “negging”, the PUA starts with the bottom line “You should feel self-conscious and insecure”, and then seeks only evidence that supports this conclusion.
Such PUA techniques should be discussed like any other Dark Side methods: with a view towards minimizing their use and effectiveness.
I think I agree. My opinion is that LW shouldn’t be for PUA/beauty tips or how-to’s. But it would be appropriate to discuss why these methods work, under what conditions you’d want to resist them, and what countermeasures you can take. (And I suspect some don’t even want it to go this far, or want to restrict PUA more than beauty.)
So, IMO it would be appropriate to say, “This beauty/PUA technique exploits the psychological hardware in men/women for the following evolutionary reasons … ”
But it would not be appropriate to say, “Here’s a trick you can use to dupe men/women into obeying you/sleeping with you …”
Have there been actual discussions here about beauty enhancement techniques that we should worry about restricting?
I meant they would have a different standard for discussing the cognitive bias issues related to beauty (despite the parallel in PUA), not that such discussions have been common.
What leads you to make this prediction?
The massive flamewar this board had which was partially over the PUA issue, compared to the tame discussions of evolutionary psychology that touch on judgments of female beauty.
What leads you to find it implausible?
It’s not that I find it implausible. It is that, other than you bringing it up, I don’t know why I should even be considering that hypothesis.
Can you point to a particular statement about evolutionary psychology referencing female beauty that is analogous to a statement about PUA, but did not provoke analogous offense?
Easily.
That example does not work. For one thing, the same paragraph goes on to describe:
None of the comments to that post expressed any offense at either of these descriptions, so this illustrates the symmetry you predict does not exist.
Also, neither of these descriptions was advocating that anyone should deliberately trigger these evolved thought processes in others to manipulate them, and thus are missing what people find offensive about PUA.
A good answer to my question should point to three things: a discussion of beauty techniques which provoked no offense, an analogous discussion of PUA, and someone taking offense to the analogous discussion of PUA. By analogous I mean that the elements that made the PUA discussion offensive should correspond to elements in the beauty techniques discussion.
I think it’s time to take a step back here: I stated a suspicion of a bias in one direction with regards to the “male side” and the “female side” of an issue as it appears on this site (and, I’d add, society in general). A suspicion, not something I could document my basis for forming. This is a low standard to meet.
In turn, you raise a reasonable question about why this hypothesis should even be on the radar (i.e. am I maybe privileging a hypothesis)? However, this is a less-than-2-bit claim. Given the topic matter, either there’s a bias in one direction, or in the other, or there’s no bias. Focusing on any one of those doesn’t require a lot of evidence to justify to begin with, so again it’s a low standard to meet.
Furthermore, you seem to arbitrarily give no weight to the fact of a large flamewar on PUA, without a corresponding one of female physical attractiveness. (And, I’d add, no one’s modded you up after your first question, while they’ve modded me up.)
Therefore, your requests on this issue seem out of proportion to the evidence I need to present. This suggests to me there’s a deeper issue going on, which maybe we should be discussing instead. If so, could you tell me what that issue is?
Now, with that said, I will answer your latest question: it’s true that both the male appeal and the female appeal were discussed in the link I gave. And yes, in giving that example, I did need you to fill in a few assumptions to see why it supports my case. So let me explain what conclusions we should draw from that post:
Imagine that EY’s post were a bit different. Let’s say that instead he went to great detail explaining the female attractiveness enhancing techniques, explain why make-up works (it has to do with how the brain interprets images from shadows, light gradient, etc.), why certain gestures work, why certain styling works. Let’s also say that he went into comparable detail about things that the male did to increase his sexual desirability, and why those are effective.
In order to describe something of parallel effectiveness, he would probably need to go into things like: actions that make him appear higher status than her (such as “negs”), and the reason for giving a false (verbal) pretense for retiring to a hotel room.
Do you think that these more educational—and equally educational—descriptions on both sides would provoke equal outrage? If so, I can see why it is unconvincing to you, and why I wouldn’t be able to find similar side-by-side examples to satisfy your standard of evidence.
But we do have a chance to put this to the test. I’ve been reading two books about the human mind which touch on visual processing and why makeup works. If I wrote an article for LW that discussed these issues in such a way that a female reader could use it to (“artificially”) increase her attractiveness, but it didn’t provoke the outrage that PUA-informative posts have provoked, would you count that as evidence in my favor?
I think we both already know what would happen, though.
I’m not sure that settles it....
“There is an object one foot across in the asteroid belt composed entirely of chocolate cake” is either true or it isn’t—in the sense you used it, that’s only a one-bit claim. So with “this murder was committed by Mortimer Q. Snodgrass, who lives at 128 Ordinary Ln.”
It may be relevant that it takes a lot more than two bits to specify your hypothesis in the first place.
In the “Mortimer Q. Snodgrass” example, Snodgrass is not one of three or so people that the evidence has not ruled out, he is one of a vast multitude of people that the evidence has not ruled out.
Of the three (mutually exclusive, jointly exhaustive) hypotheses listed by Silas, which do you think corresponds in likelihood to “someone other than Snodgrass did it”? Or do you dispute that those form a worthwhile trio of hypotheses?
Indeed, I’m skeptical that there are a ‘male side’ and ‘female side’ to this issue, and that it’s worthwhile to divide it up along gender lines, and that the two cases Silas refers to are analogous to the extent that it would be meaningful to talk about a ‘bias’ towards one as compared to the other. But I’m convinced there’s a high enough probability that my skepticism is unwarranted that I shouldn’t bug people about it at the moment.
I’m familiar with the concept, Thom. Take a guess at why I used this phrasing:
GIven that we already have enough evidence to be discussing the matter, there are only a few options left.
So yes, if we had enough evidence to be considering MQS as the murderer, it would not require additional evidence to justify considering the hypotheses “MQS guilty” and “MQS innocent”.
Perhaps I should have instead disputed whether the ‘topic matter’ was ‘given’. But we’ve already established that my intuitions regarding gender / society / taboo / PUA are vastly different from yours, and that I seem to be atypical, so perhaps my skepticism is unimportant.
ETR: Okay, let me tone that reply down.
Yes, that would have made your point responsive, and have prevented you from falsely accusing me of a basic error. Please exercise caution when someone’s comment initially appears to you to be rather stupid—you may need to look at the context some more.
Indeed.
I feel I should be pointing out some sort of humorous irony here, but I’m afraid I’m not that clever.
Wouldn’t you need a supporting example or something, though?
Seriously—let it go. You entered a thread without having read the surrounding discussion closely enough. No big deal, we all goof sometimes. We don’t all try to make it look noble, though.
My impression is that by continuing to reply but dropping the posturing required to maintain decorum and expressing frustration rather than fully engaging in the business of clever re-framing you allow him to look noble at your expense. The unfortunate thing is that the actions required to look noble are usually at odds with actually being noble. To gain social reward, either don’t engage (taking your initial positive impression) or ruthlessly battle for the moral high ground using (and bending) whatever tactics of debate are allowed by your tribe.
Let’s have a real test, that actually has elements corresponding to the offensive elements of PUA. Write your article to explain how a woman can use beauty enhancement techniques to increase her apparent attractiveness so that she can get men she is not actually interested in to buy her drinks, or do her other favors they incorrectly expect will win her attraction. Advocate that women should actually do this. I predict that this will cause offense. If it does not, that would count as evidence in your favor.
But I already agreed from the beginning that “how-to”s should be off-limits! So that’s not a relevant test.
The question here is whether the cognitive bias issues related to male/female attraction (which could potentially inform someone wanting to increase attraction in others) are disproportionately stigmatized when they talk about female biases (which matches society’s general tendency to let women be overt about effective ways to attact men beyond their natural beauty, but not men to attract women beyond their “natural” status).
People who describe biases in men (how e.g. bras can affect their judgment) do so without being criticized, but the parallel case doesn’t hold for women. Now, do you have any further evidence to dispel this suspicion, or would you prefer to explain to me what’s really motivating your question?
Fine. Then write an article about PUA that is not a how-to, presenting the biases involved as something women should be aware of when they are approached by men, and see if that is still offensive. The point is to make a real comparison, to hold both sides of this issue, men manipulating women and women manipulating men, to the same standard.
I am still not convinced there is any evidence for your suspicion. Everything you presented has been an apples and oranges comparison. The only data I have seen about an actually analagous pair of discussions is that no offense was produced in either case.
I consider it rude and a distraction from the object level discussion that you are questioning my motivation.
I guess I should have said more from the beginning: any detailed article about the bias will be usable as a how-to, by a sufficiently intelligent person. So why bother with the distinction, then? It’s an issue of tone and etiquette. “Men are attracted to X for evolutionary reasons” is preferable to “Use X—your ability to manipulate men will improve”, even though the former is informative about the latter.
So I think that for me to write a sufficiently elaborate article like the one you’ve described will provoke outrage, no matter how refined the tone. And I consider that a proper test, but I reject the constraint that the article have a deliberate focus on “this is evil, here’s how to protect yourself”. Attractiveness in women has effects on men’s minds; must any discussion of make-up be prefaced with “make-up is evil, here’s how to identify a woman’s ‘beauty-invariants’”?
This just shows me the extent to which the bias I warn about is present in you, and why my allegation seems to bother you so much. “Manipulation” is a really big category, and we need to be talking about which kinds of manipulation are unethical and which aren’t. The use of the term “manipulation” is followed up with an implicit standard of “behavior-altering actions I don’t like”, which are labeled “manipulation”, while the ones you don’t like “aren’t manipulation because I like them”.
Make-up, hairstyles, bras, etc. are forms of manipulation. Why are those acceptable, but not e.g. “negging”? That’s something you have to prove, not just assume.
So when I see you automatically attach all kinds of negative features to bias discussions involving PUA, in order to count that as a fair comparison, that looks to me like you’re trying to sneak in your own arguments by use of definition. And therefore counts as the very evidence of disparate treatment I warned about.
I consider it rude that you ignore my substantiation of that suspicion, and a distraction from the discussion that we should be having, of which my claim that you object to, is just one facet.
Because women make no bones telling men they’re wearing make-up, or had their hair styled, but for a PUA to explain that they are using “negs” specifically to deflate a good-looking woman’s ego would ruin the effect.
This is a case of the general hypothesis “manipulation is the use of techniques that wouldn’t work if their targets knew about them”.
An interesting intermediate case is the padded bra: this is deceptive, hence arguably manipulative, and I would predict with some confidence that both women and men would look askance at the practice (and that they’d both consider padded shoulders somewhat lame), while a purely decorative bra is OK.
The bra is one of the best inventions of all time. I encourage women (and I suppose males that way inclined) to make use of the technology to whatever extent pleases them or suits their purposes. Even more so if that purpose happens to include attracting me. I note, however, that for the purposes of this data point the supporting influence seems to be more important than the enlarging.
My attitude to all other forms of manipulation is similar. I like people influencing me in a way that is beneficial to me and have a strong aversion to people attempting to influence me in a way that is detrimental to me.
My hypothesis: manipulation works even when the target knows about them. This applies to negs and most other manipulation effects, particularly those that relate to attraction. Attraction isn’t a conscious choice and conscious awareness of the process makes little difference.
(That downmod wasn’t me; I recognize when my objectivity on a thread for purposes of modding is compromised.)
Well, actually, women will deny or refuse to talk about a lot of these. How many women actually tell men how much makeup they have on? How much “assistance” their bust has gotten? (ETA: I actually remember an ad campaign, possibly still going on, that encouraged women to lie about their age, because of the effectiveness of the makeup. It was actually phrased in terms of “Don’t like about your age—defy it!”, accompanied by a scene with a woman getting away with lying about her age.)
Also, I’m not sure your claim about negging is as obvious as you suspect. For one thing, how do you differentiate it, morally, from any kind of teasing? Or the negging that naturals do automatically without even knowing the term or the psychological dynamics of it?
That’s interesting. But while you’re wringing your hands about this or that practice, the rest of the world has moved passed this debate and doesn’t adhere to any kind of standard code on those issues. And women are still sleeping with, dating, and marrying those who use PUA techniques, whether they come naturally or not. (Maybe that makes them all rape victims? Who knows?)
And these women and men are making more copies of themselves.
I guess I should get back to the hand-wringing …
This may be a left-over 1950s stereotype, but I was under the impression that men both want a rather artificial appearance from women and despise women for their attention to the details needed to create it. I would be glad to find out that I’m mistaken.
I think it’d be more accurate to say that we prefer any makeup to look like the wearer just naturally looks that way, rather than like they made themselves up. (Since awareness of the makeup detracts from the immediate and visceral pleasure we’d otherwise receive from viewing an attractive woman.)
We also dislike it when the time spent on making up goes past that point of attractiveness, because it suggests that the additional effort is being spent on signaling other women, rather than on being attractive for us. ;-) (Even if a man doesn’t “get” signaling, he knows that the additional effort is both decreasing his enjoyment and eating into the time he will be spending with his date.)
The things that men most widely despise in relation to artificial appearance are not the attention to detail, but rather, the lack of attention to which details men actually prefer. There are fashion trends in makeup and clothing that seem to be beloved by women, but are absolutely hideous to men at large, because they fail to trigger the visual systems that give us pleasure, or do trigger ones that trigger avoidance.
For example, I forget what they’re called, but those tops that make it look like the woman’s waist is just beneath her bust… they make women look pregnant at first glance, no matter how otherwise nice and fashionable the tops may be. Eyebrow treatments that make women look like Ming The Merciless, etc. These are the sort of “details” men tend to despise.
In other words, it’s not that we dislike women’s attention to detail. It’s more that we’re appalled by the amount of time and effort that appears to go into doing things we don’t like.
I would guess that this is probably symmetrical to the things that men spend a lot of time on for women’s sake, that women don’t like either. E.g. bragging about their possessions and accomplishments might be a good example of a place where men try too hard and turn off women in the same way.
You mean an empire waistline?
(I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen one in person, but the description is eerily familiar. ^_^)
Yep, that’s the term. I was more thinking of the lingerie term (babydoll), because my wife owns a lingerie store, works at home in the office next to mine, and I overhear a lot of stuff. (Yes, they make those hideous waistlines in lingerie, too. [shudder])
I’ve heard about a study (sorry no cite) which found, not only that men think women with light make-up look better, but that those women look more natural.
I may not be typical, but it doesn’t feel like working on signaling if (as rarely happens), I fiddle with my appearance. It feels more like trying to get things “right”, like something between an art and a craft.
A goddawful thing I’ve occasionally run into from men is them boasting about how dangerous they are. I really detest it. I don’t know if it turns off all women.
Part of the problem is that I don’t know how to evaluate it for accuracy. This makes it noise (and rather repetitive), not signal.
Furthermore, I’m 4′11″ and not athletic. I haven’t found people to be especially dangerous to me in general, but I make it through my life without needing to be scary.
And I have the irrational impression that those guys are trying to prove that I don’t scare them. Ick.
I mentioned all this to a male friend, and he said that talking about how dangerous one is is normal male chat. If so, I’m glad I’m not stuck with it.
This data point isn’t terribly relevant to the question of whether signalling is the ‘true’ explanation for your actions—signaling is not in general expected to be a conscious motive for any given action.
This would generally be an example of cheap talk rather than signalling. To the extent that women are attracted to ‘dangerous’ men (more accurately men who will be able to defend them and their children from harm and to dominate other men and so provide more resources) they will be attuned to signals that are hard to fake. Boasting is a cheap signal and may well backfire even on targets who are genuinely seeking the advertised quality.
I assume you realize that your experience would likely be different if you were male?
You mean, better and more natural than women without any make up? I would guess that’s probably a simple case of the halo effect at work, with “better” creating a halo inclining them to rate higher on “natural”.
But where does your learning of what’s “right” come from? Don’t women generally learn what’s “right” in this area from other women?
The PUA literature says this is true of all forms of male boasting, so presumably you’re far from alone. It’s rather like disinformation—if you want the enemy to believe your fake plans, you have to make the information more costly for them to obtain than just listening to a broadcast announcement. ;-)
Wouldn’t surprise me. Men generally do the stupidest things when trying to prove their bravery, get laid, or both. ;-)
It might be more accurate to say that male chat involves posturing about one’s prowess, which might be intellectual rather than physical, depending on one’s circle of friends. (Of course, if you put it that way, “normal” female chat tends to be the same, just less overt, and more about social knowledge and status than individual ability.)
I would expect it to, particularly when the boasts are directed to women and not overheard when directed to other men. As you suggest, it isn’t a credible signal and can also seem insecure.
Your comment is non-responsive because I was (mainly) referring to cases where the man doesn’t have advance knowledge of how much make-up the woman was using. In general, women aren’t expected to disclose such a thing to men they’ve just met, and don’t do it voluntarily. Hence why Morendil’s claim
is wrong.
Now, regarding your point:
Pjeby beat me to it: It’s another case of average vs. marginal. Men might expect women to do a lot to make themselves beautiful, but resent them wasting time on fruitless marginal units of effort when they “look just fine, what’s the fuss?”—especially when it makes them wait, of course. This isn’t a case of impossible expectations.
In terms of being attractive to men, most of the effort spent finding “just the right color” of lipstick or whatever is completely wasted. (I remember a Maddox rant about the different names for indistinguishable lipstick color.) Many a time I’ve been tempted to go up to a woman in the beauty aisle of a store and say, “Ah! That’s it! That’s why men don’t show enough interest in you! Because your make-up is a slightly wrong color! Aha! It makes so much sense now! The mystery is solved!”
Fortunately, even I have enough restraint not to do that. But the point is, most of this effort does not benefit men.
Though I’m obviously atypical, I thought you might be interested in this: One time I met a woman through a group and asked her out. She later confessed on a date that she was caught completely off guard because she was in her nurse scrubs, was tired from having worked a long shift, and hadn’t done anything to look good, and so couldn’t understand why I had been attracted to her.
Of course, I did the stupid thing by explaining it with appeal to the concept of a “beauty invariant” … but that’s about right: I (seem to) know a lot about how physically appealing a woman will be to me on average, even if my first impression is in the lower range. But I don’t know if this is true in general.
Men also spend lots of time doing things that are more impressive to their peers than to women. I sometimes wonder if this is part of a price-fixing game of sorts, where both genders work to keep individual attractiveness close to some group mean, in order to prevent all-out, no holds-barred competition for mates.
Perhaps we would expect to see some sort of slogan, promoting group loyalty over individual sexual fitness.… like, oh, I don’t know… “bros before ho’s”? ;-) Women don’t have such a catchy motto, but the same idea is definitely in effect. Otherwise, PUA literature wouldn’t need to teach strategies for the neutralization of jealous friends and giving women plausible reasons to “ditch” their girlfriends.
I think these things are much more symmetrical than you are claiming, and that you’re simply biased towards paying attention to the problems on the male side of the fence, without looking at how the same limits, penalties, stigma, etc. apply on the female side as well.
pjeby said:
This is an interesting idea. I’ve observed that while there is a norm among men in mainstream white middle class culture that negatively judges men who put a lot of work into fashion and style, yet PUAs work a lot on their style, and it majorly pays off because it is a large factor in women’s perceptions of male status (and therefore, attractiveness). It is probably a good thing for most men that the average level of style is commonly so low, and men aren’t held to such a high standard for appearance. Yet the cat isn’t quite out of the bag about how much style actually effects women’s attraction, or some process is fixing the price. Knowing how powerful style is, I can’t go back to dressing like a normal guy.
Stored riff: I think mainstream American culture encourages men to go way below the human norm for interest in how they dress. As far as I can tell, the default is for men and women to put approximately equal effort into how they dress.
Men really despise women for that? I suppose I cannot know the mind of men in general but that attitude sounds both bizarre and a terrible thing to signal if they desire positive attention from women (ie. to get laid).
How did you get from “women should be aware” of the biases, to “this is evil”? The constraint seems to fit with your standard:
I believe that discussions following this standard will not provoke offense. Mostly it is important to not come off as advocating the use of the technique for manipulation.
So, me wanting to use the same standards in evaluating the two things I want to compare is a sign of bias?
Where did I claim that some of these are acceptable and some are not? The standard I would apply is what sort of manipulations the manipulated person resents when they find out about it.
It would be perfectly fair for you to point to discussions of PUA that lack the features I describe as offensive, which still provokes offense, and to analogous discussion of beauty techniques that do not provke the same offense. Since I know, and have explained, what evidence would persuade me that I am wrong about what features are negative, it is not fair to claim I am saying they are negative by definition.
I did not ignore your substantiation. I refuted it. You don’t get a free pass on supporting a claim because it is part of a larger issue.
And your attempt to parallel my objection does not seem to fit well. Maybe you should not try to be cute like that.
Mainly from your implication that the purpose of the article is that these are things that should be resisted and, in a perfect world, never done to begin with.
No, because you’re ignoring the part I just bolded: for some of the techniques, one might be perfectly okay with others using on them. A lot of men are okay with their opinion of a woman being altered by makeup. A female commenter (which I’ll dig up if you don’t believe me) had remarked that (some appropriate subset she had in mind of) PUA techniques would have the effect, if widely used, of making all men hotter, which she would regard as good.
Let’s not forget, a lot of PUA is just teaching autistic-spectrum males to do things that “naturals” already do automatically. If you find yourself saying an action is bad only when you know why it supports your goals, you made a mistake somewhere.
No, your attempt to equate your ungrounded hidden definition of manipulation with “real comparisons”, plus the substantiation I gave that you just cut off in your reply, is a sign of bias.
Probably at the point where you required any discussion of biases related to PUA have the premise that it’s only being talked about as a way to destroy its effectiveness.
But why does that matter in terms of whether it should be included in the article? Why can’t it describe the effects that certain actions have, by reference to specific biases, which exist because of a specific mechanism, without rendering judgments about whether people deem them manipulative (which people, including and especially the targets of the techniques, will disagree on)?
Okay, but you still seem to have this presumption that any article discussing PUA-related biases in women is by its nature promoting bad stuff and so must apologize at every corner by focusing purely on how to resist them.
No, you did not refute it. You have said nothing about the evidential standards I discussed, or the reason it is so important for you to learn the basis for my suspicions. The latter would go a long way to getting to the root of our fundamental disagreement, and be far, far more productive than unraveling what causes a suspicion of mine in one specific case.
If attempting to get to the root of a discussion by comparison to the opponent’s standards is “cute”, then may we all be kittens!
You are horribly misunderstanding my position, and detecting biases in a position that I do not actually hold. Stop trying to infer a deeper agenda than the things I actually say. Your mental model of me is wrong.
I said women should be aware of biases they have that men will try to manipulate. That does not mean they have to resist it. They could react to this awareness by saying, “Oh, that’s cool, it lets me enjoy sex/dating more”, as long as that is their decision. You were the one who made the leap, on my behalf, from “they should be aware” to “it is evil and must be resisted”. I never claimed and do not agree that this is a necessary conclusion. Though, it is also a reaction that women could have. Or they can react anywhere in the spectrum to each sub technique independantly. Or they can react by thinking “I want sex as part of the process of getting to know someone for a potential long term relationship, and it bothers me that men try to make feel like that is what we are doing when in fact they are not interested in a long term relationship.” (And I am aware some PUA’s explicitly make their intentions in this regard clear, and this reaction is not fair as a response to their techniques. This should produce less offense.)
The refutation of your “evidence” was noting that there was no analogous discussion about women manipulating men to the particular discussions about men manipulating women that caused offense, so there is no expectation to observe offense at an analogous discussion until one actually happens. You have evidence that a certain class of discussion of men manipulating women causes offense, and the a different class of discussion of women manipulating men does not cause offense. What you do not have is a comparison of the same class of both types of discussion.
Do you want to show my refutation is wrong? Then stop trying to attack me, accusing me of biases, and find the two discussion that you can argue are in fact analogous, in which the discussion of men manipulating women provoked offense, and the discussion of women manipulating men did not. That is the object level evidence that would demonstrate your point.
All you have to do is effectively argue that PUA discussion met the same standard as the beauty techniques discussion. If I say here is a corner in the PUA article where it did not apologize, you can point to a similar corner of the beauty techniques article. Any unreasonable standard you worry I might apply, you can argue the beauty techniques article doesn’t meet it either. But it seems unfair to assume I would treat these articles asymetrically before even having that discussion.
JGWeismann said:
When you used the word “manipulate,” I do see why Silas thought you were being judgmental and primarily advocating resistance. If you say you don’t mean that, then I believe you, and I would prefer that the discussion move on to substantive issues, rather than what biases you might supposedly hold.
I think part of the problem in discussions like this is the word “manipulation,” which different people use to mean different things (some people use it in a value-neutral way, while others use it with a negative connotation… and some slide between these two meanings whenever convenient). I prefer to talk about “social influence,” and whether it is ethical or not.
Perhaps you and Silas can just start this discussion over? What was the main question, anyway? I lost track.
I see what you are saying. But I find it strange to apply this interpretation to “men manipulating women”, but not “women manipulating men”.
Me too.
Should we expect this community to hold discussion of PUA to a higher standard than discussions of other sorts of “social influence”, in particular, the use of beauty enhancement techniques to make women more attractive?
What is this in reference do? Who do you claim was doing that?
FYI: In case you’re interested:
That would seem to contradict the discussion’s history. You entered after I said this:
And you entered to respond to the bolded part. I don’t think that’s equivalent to
I was saying that, even though both beauty methods and male charisma methods induce bias, some posters (unfairly IMHO) support more restriction on discussion of the latter despite their relevance. JGW denies the existence of such a class of posters.
I am not saying that no individual poster will treat discussion of PUA unfairly. But I think that there will not be enough to cause problems if we have discussion of PUA following the standards you specified. Are we in agreement about this? If not, can we discuss it at the object level, without trying to assign each other motives for the positions we take?
Better yet, skip the meta discussion entirely and just create a relevant, well written post on a charisma related subject that one of you happen to be interested in. If someone happens to object on principle then we’ll see it and respond as appropriate.
Why waste time second guessing hypothetical unreasonable objections?
Hey, fine with me. I’m not the one demanding huge-likelihood-ratio evidence to justify an estimate made in an aside. That would be JGW.
If I turn out to be wrong in my estimation that LW mirrors a lot of society in going apes*** whenever useful female romantic biases are mentioned, like it has in the past—GREAT! The reason we have guesses is to have expectations BEFORE the ultra-conclusive evidence comes in.
...”useful”?
Perhaps:
I don’t see why SilasBarta could not have merely said “female romantic biases”. We don’t talk about “useful halo effects”, after all. The extra modifier only makes sense if you assume the audience wants to pick up women.
Edit: The above is apparently mistaken—SilasBarta’s correction.
I wouldn’t have used ‘biases’ either. That framing gives the wrong implications about where the actual ‘bias’ lays, conveying the impression that for some reason female attraction ‘should’ conform to some other ideal. I am more inclined to look at the bias that propagates the ideal.
Good point also. “Bias” should be reserved for predictable deviations from accurate estimates, while the concept doesn’t carry over here neatly. There are certainly biases in the sense that “negging you is not evidence that he’s higher status”, but then, women are not more “correct” for wanting high-status men, nor is it quite accurate to say that women consciously pursue status, which is only as true as saying “men want to spread their genes”.
Rather, evolution formed women’s minds with preferences that are imperfect detectors of status. A woman may thus only want an “attractive man [that I have a bond with]”, even knowing that the attractiveness is just an artifact of long-invalid built-in heuristics. (Just as men may merely want an “attractive woman”, even though the judgment uses heuristics irrelevant to gene propagation in the present day).
I agree. I don’t accept “biased” as a meaningful modifier to female subjective perceptions of male attractiveness. At most, bias could be ascribed to female perception about facts about men that might influence their perceptions of male attractiveness.
Well said!
Alright, that sounds creepy/sleazy/demeaning. Fair point. Let me explain why I chose that term:
Like I said before, accurate discussions of biases can be transformed, by an intelligent person, into strategies to take advantage of others. This is sad, but it’s the price you pay for accuracy. The harm is, however, substantially mitigated by the theory/practice gap that exists even for good theories.
I could have said, less creepishly, “accurate female romantic biases”, and that was my first choice, but it doesn’t really capture what I’m referring to: no one objects to e.g., “women like gifts”, but it’s not very insightful into female psychology. What I want to refer to is the kind of things that are politically-incorrect to talk about, but are actually true and do reflect the functioning of female psychology. So I probably should have said, “real, female romantic biases that are taboo to talk about”, but shortened it to “useful”.
In retrospect, that was unwise.
Oh! You meant “important”! I fear I have done you a disservice.
Thanks, but I’m not sure “important” does it either. It is likewise important that women are often revealed to be biased estimators of the commitment of fathers they’re not married to, but it is the psychological basis of the misjudgment I’m referring to, not its empirical regularity.
In any case, don’t let it bother you; any poor phrasing is my fault alone.
I agree that JGW demands were unreasonable, in fact, they came quite close to the line at which I would label them disingenuous.
Seriously? I asked the questions to see if there really was evidence that LW really will scrutinize a PUA discussion more than a beauty techniques discussion that is equally demeaning/objectifying. The best evidence I have is that when both topics were discussed side by side, in the same style and tone, neither produced offense. Silas attempted focus in on only the discussion of beauty techniques not producing offense. And you think I am the one who is unreasonable and nearly disingenuous?
Perhaps my questions could seem unreasonable if interpreted as the only form of evidence I would accept. But if that is the case, why not just present another form of evidence, instead of complaining that my questions are not reasonable?
It is quite possible that my impressions do you an injustice. I share them only to express empathy with Silas, who seemed to me to be getting frustrated in a way that seemed understandable to me.
...
You provide important insights, as usual, and it is appreciated.
Well, I didn’t, and I generally try hard not to. That’s why I’ve now posted two summaries in the course of this discussion (first, second), tracing it back to JGW’s entrance.
What you call an “attack” and “accusation of bias” was actually a very relevant query. Let’s review the history (again):
1) I stated a suspicion (prior tilted slightly toward one hypothesis rather than another) that PUA bias discussion would tend to be criticized unjustifiably more than beauty bias discussion.
2) You asked why I harbor such a suspicion.
3) I pointed to the flamewar over PUA, vs. tame discussions of beauty.
4) You say, in essence, that my position is so wildly implausible that I need to provide the same level of evidence as would be necessary to refute a “privileging the hypothesis charge”. You ask for an example.
5) I show a case where a man was shown to be biased because of a woman’s beauty, while less bias was mentioned for the woman, and a following calm discussion.
6) Here’s where the problem begins: Despite my relatively low belief in my claim, you go through the effort to refute the analogy and ask for better ones. Now: all throughout society, discussion of manipulation of men with beauty-enhancing products is widely discussed, while PUA, or any actually effect methods of drawing attraction from women is taboo. Yet you act shocked, shocked that this forum would be otherwise, and demand very specific evidence (and IMHO unfairly specific evidence) that it would be.
7) At this point, I’m confused. Why do you treat my mere suspicion like it’s some bizarre, random idea (actually one of 3 relatively plausible options) and keep asking for more and more evidence (and more specific evidence)? It’s been pretty commonly noted that a disparity exists (since the OB days), and you won’t stop until I can provide copious substantiation for a mere suspicion. Hm. That’s strange. Is this part of a broader discussion we should be having, I wonder. And so I ask.
See how it all fits in? It just seems strange that you really want to stomp out any belief, anywhere, that PUA discussions might be unfairly stigmatized. You ask for comparisons from beauty discussions, when you know there haven’t been nearly as many for comparison.
That’s why I ask what’s going on. Because it’s clear to me you’re not just humbly asking for a little proof of the outrageous idea that men have a harder time discussing the nuts-and-bolts of attracting women. You’re offended at the very suggestion.
So again, I’ll ask: what’s really going on here? What is it that makes this issue, and your belief on this issue, so important that you’ll hound anyone who expresses any contrary reservations until they give you that perfectly parallel case? Because I’d much rather have that discussion than this one. And so would the rest of the forum, I’m guessing.
I have already told you that your mental model of me is wrong. Update already.
As you have not given an example of a reasonably parallel case, you should not be predicting that I would reject such a case for not being perfect. I am not hounding you for a perfectly parallel case. I am looking for some evidence that I would not expect to see if the two types of discussion were held to the same standard.
If you believe the example you provided is reasonably parallel, please address my object level objections to it on the object level. There is no need to speculate as to why I made objections that you think are wrong, just explain why you think they are wrong.
If you can’t respond to my objections, and can’t find a better example, or other type of evidence, then perhaps you should abandon your suspicion, which you claim is already weak. Abandoning your suspicion does not mean it is false, it just means there isn’t a reason to be considering it in the absence of the sort of evidence that could support or refute it.
What is going on here has nothing to do with my feeling about PUA specifically. The objections I made which you seem to feel are nitpicking are in fact things that immediately jump out at me saying this observation does not discriminate between the theories being considered. It is like if person A gets sanctioned for engaging in behavior X, and complains that no one else ever got sanctioned for engaging in behavior X, when it turns out that no one else had ever engaged in behavior X at all.
If you can substantiate this, it would be object level evidence for your position. There is no need to act surprised that I have not taken it into account. Just present it as evidence and explain why you think it is true.
I would consider an appeal to common knowledge adequate in this instance. While some could plausibly deny awareness that discussion of attraction (and social dominance in general) tactics are frequently taboo, an argument would be a sub-optimal context for Silas to engage in education on the subject.
Since the topic so closely ties in with themes like ‘near/far’ thinking and related social-political biases it would be a post that would be worth Silas making if he has sufficient interest and some useful sources to draw from to signal credibility.
I would not. In our society, a man who has many sexual partners is reverentially referred to as a “player” or a “stud”, and a woman who successfully manipulates men is derisively referred to as a “manipulative bitch”.
There are 3,940,000 Google results for Manipulate Men, and 3,040,000 results for Manipulate Women. A ration close to 4:3 in favor of manipulating men, but it seems like neither subject is being repressed.
I was contemplating your post, and thinking that there’s no concept in the culture for a woman who successfully manipulates men into having sex with her, though there are concepts around “slut” for having a lot of partners. Or more partners than the speaker approves of.
“Manipulative bitch” would be generally be for a woman who gets men to spend more resources on her than is approved of. I don’t think the women other than his wife that Tiger Woods had sex with would be considered manipulative.
Seductress? And what is the label used for women who sleep with married men? Something about ‘family destroyer’, I don’t recall exactly.
The difference seems to go along with the trend of ‘sex for resources’ in sexual relations. It is low status to be a female who gives sex for little return in resources while it is low status to be a male who gives resources without getting the sex that he desires. At the other side of the trade the ‘player’ and ‘manipulative bitch’ are of neutral or high status but also ‘bad’ and subject to intended social sanction by the one doing the labelling.
Homewrecker? (I am not at all surprised that this has 4 pages of definitions on urbandictionary.)
That one occurred to me, but I don’t think of it as being in current use. However, I tend to hang out in places that are leftish, libertarian, and/or poly. I don’t know about the whole culture.
That’s the one!
The appropriate comparison would be to a woman who gets men to spend resources on her with an insincere promise of sex.
And there is a vocabulary for such a case, though not as a term for the woman. Anyone familiar with “being friendzoned”?
Note that Google result counts on the first page of a search are approximate, not exact figures. On smaller result sets the actual count (as obtained by getting to the last page of the search results) can be close, or half, or even (that I’ve seen) a hundredth the approximated count. I would’t conclude much of anything from the ratio of estimates with such large error bars.
Those aren’t errors. If you repeat both searches with duplicates included, and go to the last page of results, you will find that Google is returning exactly 1000 for both. This is because Google never returns more than 1000, regardless of how many hits there are.
Comparing the estimates is the correct operation.
Do you have the empirical data to back up your unqualified assertions?
Try comparing Google’s estimates to actual hit counts (as reported by going to the last page), with and without “similar results” included, for searches returning fewer than 1000 hits.
Here is one experimental result: estimated count 585, actual with similar results excluded 177, actual with similar results included 224.
I gave some: Google never returns more than 1000 hits. Therefore estimates orders of magnitude above 1000 (as in the case at hand) cannot be tested by looking at the actual number of hits returned: the two numbers have nothing to do with each other.
I do not know how accurate the estimates are, but a factor of several seems to be about right, as in the test you just made. I have also seen anomalies such as a search for X giving an estimate lower than for a search of X and Y, but never by orders of magnitude, that I’ve noticed.
That’s worth knowing. Is there a source for non-obvious things about google searches?
Interesting.
How about the totals according to the last page, excluding “similar results”? That gives 899 for Manipulate Men and 893 for Manipulate Women. That ratio is pretty close to 1:1.
And the totals were way off from the front page estimates, by orders of magnitude. Maybe this reflects a lot of excluded similar results?
Posting this as a separate reply so the separate issue can be voted on.
JGW, you’re confirming my suspicion that that there’s a deeper issue going on here, and I think we’ve found it. You see the issue I raised a one part of the broader issue about whether men or women have it better (in some appropriate sense I’m starting to discern). So you see it as completely topical to bring up a point like you just did, because it supports your stance, even though it has nothing to do with the point I’m arguing here.
Like wedrifid said, I’m not trying to prove that men, in some broad, general sense, are somehow “more manipulated” or “more oppressed” than women or anything like that. I’m saying that with respect to one particular issue—sharing accurate information among themselves that could be used to appear more attractive to the opposite sex—men receive more rebuke than women.
I think this is pretty common knowledge, and several quick sanity checks should convince you. For example, go to a retail center and count the number of places overtly promoting effective ways of making onesself attractive to the opposite sex, and the effort and specificity they give, and show how it compares to men and women.
Alternately, consider the rebuke you get for giving advice for being attractive to women that actually works.
You might want to rephrase that—even knowing your overall position, I parsed it wrong the first time I read it. i.e., as “giving advice (for being attractive) to women” rather than “giving advice for (being attractive to women)”. Your sentence is also unclear as to who is giving the rebuke—the recipient or a third party—although of course both are possible.
Actually, you can also get rebuked (or at least disbelieved), by giving accurate information to women (about what’s attractive to men) as well. Many things that men consider attractive in female clothing, appearance, interests, or behavior are things that will get women docked status points by their peers… and I’m not talking about revealing clothing or overtly sexual behavior, either.
I actually think that the situation regarding accurate advice is more symmetrical than you’re arguing. Women are actually just as stigmatized for seeking accurate mate-attracting information as men are, if not more so. What is socially acceptable is advice on how to be fashionable, not how to be attractive. As I mentioned in another comment, many fashions are not actually attractive to men.
Both men and women fear being stigmatized by their peers for seeking information that will actually help them attract the opposite sex, as opposed to information that merely helps them signal attractiveness and group loyalty to their same-sex peers.
What’s different about men is simply that men have much more to gain and less to lose by breaking with their peers, and are more likely to be outcasts or rejects with nothing to lose. The current (relative) popularity of PUA at the moment is likely because it’s mildly fashionable for men, in the same way that “The Rules” were mildly fashionable for women a while ago.
“The Rules”, however, are out of fashion now with women, and discussing them would probably provoke similar rebuke from men as PUA does from women.
(For readers who don’t know, “The Rules” was a book for women discussing behavioral tactics women could use to mentally manipulate men into long-term relationships, that had similar popularity to “The Game” for men.)
Those are some good points about the attractiveness/ fashionability distinction, and I made similar remarks to a different end. I’ll have to think about that.
However, I can’t but refer back to simple comparisons of the social reactions to advice, such as this:
“If you want to appear more attractive to men, show cleavage and arch your back.” --> “Duh, already know that, of course that’s how men are.”
vs.
“If you want to appear more attractive to women, act dominant by ordering her around, thinking of her like a disobedient child, and generally making yourself appear scarce and unavailable.” --> “Shut up!!! Shut up, you F***ING terrorist! Women are NOT like that, you worthless misogynist! You should be RESPECTFUL and DEFERENTIAL and give them lots of gifts. That’s what we want, chauvanist. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go meet my boyfriend, who is such a jerk to me. I hope he’s not late … again.”
Disclaimer: I’m not advocating the advice I paraphrased for men, but actual successful PUAs—who would know what they’re talking about—seem to believe it, and the refusal to discuss such cases seriously is inexcusable.
Your comparison isn’t fair—compare mental manipulations vs. physical ones, and notice that “The Rules” were almost as controversial as “The Game”. Conversely, you’re not going to be declared evil if you tell men they should work out to get a certain chest-waist or shoulder-waist ratio that women find attractive.
Nobody cares that much about what men and women do to emphasize their physical attractiveness, or change in superficial behaviors to be more attractive. It’s things that involve direct effect on the attractee’s mind, or direct alteration to the attractor’s body (e.g. implants, lifts, hair plugs) that produce the most impression of deception and manipulation, and thus the most excoriation.
Also, phrasing is very important. I could rephrase your controversial advice in a much-less offensive way thus:
“Women prefer men who are confident and know what they want. So be clear about what you want, and don’t be afraid to tell them. They don’t like it when men come across as needy or uncomfortable around women, so it can be helpful to think of how you might interact with your kid sister—playful and teasing, rather than reverent or worshipful. Similarly, if you seem to have nothing to do but hang around with her, then you might seem like a loser with no other options. Cultivate other interests, including ones that don’t involve her.”
I just gave essentially the exact same advice, but in a harder-to-object to form. Most women I know would not only agree with the correctness of this advice, but would express their wish that more guys understood these things, and advocate educating men in this fashion—since it emphasizes the benefits of these behaviors for women. (i.e., confidence, relatability, and independence)
The problem is that men and women do not always use the same (connotational) language for behaviors. To a low-attractive male, any action taken by a high-attractive male is suspect. Thus, an initially low-status PUA is more likely to describe high-status behaviors in negative terms (e.g. “ordering her around”) rather than the terms women would use to describe the behavior they find attractive (“a man who knows what he wants, and isn’t afraid to say it”).
A PUA trying to teach others is also likely to use this negative language because his target audience of other low-attractive males will relate to it better, and it will also provide an outlet for their frustrations. However, this isn’t the best language to use for an objective discussion or to use with people who are, well, not sexually and socially frustrated to misogynistic or near-misogynistic levels.
I actually think your formulation is the better way to teach it, as well. This variety of bitter misogyny tends to leak out in a man’s interactions with women even if he knows the right things to say. And women won’t find it attractive. People aren’t resentful toward their kid sister. A PUA’s target audience might like hearing the objectionable version more but it won’t be as helpful to them.
In other words, you listed G as well as G*.
I mention this explicitly because I think this actually renders your wording importantly different from SilasBarta’s. In the specific context of men-seeking-women that this advice was written for, a man who lies about what times he’s free can make himself seem scarce and unavailable, whereas a man who actually has a crowded schedule will seem scarce and unavailable … but only the latter has (or might have) the actual desired property.
Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Higher-status PU gurus advocate approaching G as much as possible, rather than faking G*. It’s easier and more beneficial to your life to have more of a “life”, than it is to fake having one in order to play hard to get. It’s also substantially more beneficial to actually be confident, than to learn a zillion and one tiny behaviors that signal confidence, etc.
That’s only true if you view unavailability as a positive, rather than over-availability as a negative. A man who can simply avoid doing things that turn women off is still far ahead of the average man in attractiveness, regardless of the reasons or means by which he avoids doing those things.
As it happens, unavailability is one of those characteristics women may deny finding attractive, because it’s not actually enjoyable. (Note that we often behave as if we “want” things we don’t actually like “having”.) Yet, over-availability is a negative criterion that women don’t deny is unattractive.
It seems, though, that the thing that makes something “manipulative” or “deceitful” is whether the behavior is described in terms of things the subject agrees he or she would like, using “far” language, or things the “manipulator” would like, in “near” language.
The objectionable PUA advice is very specific “near” instruction about how to behave in such a way as to meet the PUA’s goals; my version was a mostly “far” description of “what women like/dislike”. Similarly, I could take “The Rules” and attempt to recast them in a positive-to-men light, by saying that men don’t want to be in a relationship with women who are clingy, desperate, or might be sleeping with other men… so if you’re looking for a man who wants a relationship, do these things to avoid putting them off.
(Of course, the truth is that both the Game and the Rules are pushing evolutionary buttons in the opposite sex that can hijack conscious intentions, AND contain elements that are consciously considered desirable. The “hijacking” elements tend to be seen as objectionable no matter which sex is targeted.)
I don’t think we have any substantive disagreement.
This is a really good point. Think like reality! Behavior that pleases others and benefits yourself is virtuous!
All manipulations under discussion pass through the mind, so I don’t understand the distinction mental vs physical. And, “The Rules” certainly hasn’t gotten near the attention as “The Game”, nor does it commit the sin of breaking from advice women already get. (“Hold off on having sex with a man”—gee, I’m sure women aren’t taught that, right?) So there parallel isn’t nearly as strong as you claim.
But that’s not advice of remotely similar effectiveness: a) women rank looks as relatively unimportant beyond a certain point, and b) for a man, simply looking good is not attractive in that it does not, er, attract. You won’t get approached by women just for looking good; women, OTOH, will be approached by men mainly on their looks.
(ETA:) I’m not alleging deception or hypocrisy in those standards and judgments. What I criticize is the attempt to suppress and disparage truthful information about what criteria women are actually using. What goes on now would be like if men adamantly denied that breast implants have any effect whatsoever on female attractiveness, and that they’re immoral, and pursued women with implants almost exclusively. (I know you disagree that this accurately characterizes what goes on, and my responses to that are elsewhere in this post. I just want to clarify what specific behavior I’m criticizing.)
Not for “ordering them around”, you didn’t; there was no parallel in the advice you gave for that. More importantly, the good advice you claim women agree with is given side by side with the stuff that’s completely ineffective and countereffective (gifts, admiration, letting her make choices—which by the way does not contradict “knowing what you want”). How are men supposed to know which advice is deception and which isn’t (or perhaps more politely, which advice reveals a lack of self-understanding / luminosity / going along with what one’s expected to say)?
Sure, but like above, they say the same thing about men doing the counterproductive stuff. A clock is broken even when it’s right twice a day.
It sounds like you’re saying women are truthful as long as you stick to euphemisms and politician-speak(“a man saying what he wants”) and stay away from practical implications (“a man ordering a woman to use a different fashion” [1]). Am I supposed to be thankful for this?
[1] Which counts as sexual harassment, btw (unless you’re really hot).
Oh come now. It’ll get you AIs and IOIs (Approach Invitations and Indicators of Interest), which are the female equivalent. (Of course, “looking good” includes dressing well and being well-groomed.)
Yes there was—be clear about what you want, and say it. This is merely one of the ways a woman would positively describe what you’re calling “ordering them around”.
Both descriptions carry subjective connotations, without being a truly accurate low-level description of “confident leadership” behaviors—and are equally biased.
A truly neutral description of the behaviors in question would be much longer to write, since it would need to describe behavioral guidelines in much more detail.
WTF does that have to do with this discussion? I didn’t say men should try to learn PUA from women; there’s a clear and obvious advantage to learning them from men (for the most part).
(I’m skipping replying to the rest of your comment, because it’s just more down the same sinkhole.)
You seem to have confused me with the “PUA=bad” crowd, but nothing I said can’t be found in PUA materials. I’m also not in favor of banning PUA discussion on LW.
What I disagree with you on is the assertion of asymmetrical bias and social pressures for men and women regarding the “venusian arts”. Most of the asymmetry you assert disappears when you control for physical vs. mental, male vs. female goals, etc.
AFAICT, you are so stuck in anger about women, that you can’t see just how symmetrical the situation actually is for them. Men don’t give women good advice for what we want in long-term relationships, being just as likely to say we want one thing, but actually commit to another. And men are just as likely to be irritated when women point this out, as the reverse.
ISTM that one reason you don’t see this is that you keep talking about “beauty” techniques as the appropriate parallel to PUA, when that would only make sense if women’s evolutionarily-assigned mating goals had to do with short-term sexual interest, vs. long term bonding.
I also don’t get why you seem to keep making arguments about the culture at large, vs. rationalist culture and LessWrong. The two are different enough that you can hardly import the outside world here, and expect some sort of redress for wrongs that might be occurring elsewhere. That would be equivalent to a woman coming here and saying that we all should use “she” in our examples to make up for an excessive use of “he” in the world at large.
I will start from your more personal remarks:
What? Where are you getting you this? I’ve long known you were not part of the “PUA = bad” crowd, and that you’re not in favor of banning. I would counterpropose that you’re interpreting my disagreement and occasional impatience as hostility, and assuming it carries over to other areas.
I’m going to delete the unhelpful psychoanalysis from the rest of these excerpts; they have nothing to do with the validity of my points and only serve to insult. If I’m wrong, let it be for some reason other than “Silas is a nut”.
Don’t speak for me; I’ve never been asked, and, on principle, I would refuse to give advice if I knew it would be skewed.
Again, speak for yourself—if I feel social pressures that keep me from being truthful, I say so rather than perpetuate what I know to be wrong. I imagine that if I were a woman, I’d adhere to the same standard and expect no less out of others, male or female.
Not really. I accept quite well that women usually aren’t going to be drawing men in for short-term sexual interest. Nevertheless, part of the necessary steps in getting “shortlisted” for a long-term relationship is looks, which is why I claim the parallel holds.
’Cause it’s a critical example of bias and poor specification of values, maybe?
Now, for the rest:
Female AI/IOIs, by design, have plausible deniability. One can only take them as definitive at one’s own risk—that breaks the equivalence.
“I want beer” --> being clear about what I want, but not giving orders
”Bring me beer” --> being clear AND giving orders
I’ll accept that full specification of which is okay and which isn’t, is going to be difficult. Point taken, and I’ll stop bringing it up. But on this issue, at least, you’re going two far in blurring very different concepts.
Especially since:
“I want beer” (with a strong voice and expectant eye contact) --> Being clear about what I want and communicating that my mere wishes should implicitly be interpreted as orders. “Bring me beer” (lowered eyes, end of the sentence raised slightly in pitch) --> Making an uncertain claim about what I want, with a supplicating request for action.
A potential asymmetry that is of some interest is a difference in (typical) ability to separate ‘far mode’ signalling beliefs and ‘near mode’ actions.
Now I’m curious. What do men say we want in long-term relationships and what do we actually commit to? I think I know what I want but when it comes to related areas (what I want from work life) I have atypical preferences so I am not comfortable generalising from a sample of me.
Certainly, it’s easier to make anything more palatable if you talk about in “far”—which of course is the whole point of “far” thinking in the first place. ;-)
Maybe you should ask a woman that question—honestly, I’m not sure how comfortable I am with trying to answer it in any detail.
Actually, contemplating just how uncomfortable I am with trying to say what I know, makes me considerably more sympathetic to why women don’t often give guys good advice. No matter how true or useful the information might be to the opposite sex, there is considerable social stigma (from one’s own sex) attached to telling the truth.
(Imagine the social consequences if a woman said she wanted guys to boss her around, or a guy said he wanted a woman who wasn’t always interested in sex when he was. And that assumes that either the man or the woman are able to notice this not-necessarily-conscious preference in themselves, and admit to it, before the social stigma issue can even come up!)
(A different tangent to where mine lead but:) No, some things are much more palatable in ‘near’, particularly when talking to those who believe they have correlated interests.
I know women who say that, particularly to other women and do so without losing status and while maintaining rapport. They are less inclined to say it around guys but if, to give an example, I said ‘you love it’ they would take girlish pleasure and agree. One of the messages communicated is ‘Oh, great, he doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. We don’t need to lie to him’.
Really? Guys actually act like they want to commit to a woman who is not always interested in sex when he is? With the aforementioned caveat that I do not generalise from me I have extremely strong evidence that this doesn’t apply in my case. (And thanks for giving your answer without answering.)
Why do you think women are advised not to have sex on the first date, and not to be a man’s “booty call”, if they want a relationship?
Why do you think men routinely have affairs with women who’ll have sex with them, while remaining married to a woman who’s not?
I’m not saying guys like this—I’m saying that this is an example of controversial mating advice that works for “women’s goals”, in the same way that PUA does for “men’s goals”.
(Both phrases being in quotes because not all men and women have the same goals.)
That is good evidence.
That I do not find nearly persuasive. Men are less likely to have affairs when their sex life within the marriage is healthy. They are also less likely to end the marriage.
That’s what I was allowing for when I said ‘act like’ (economic ‘want’).
Do you believe that ‘be less interested in sex’ would be helpful advice for maintaining a long term relationship that has already formed? I don’t deny the possibility, just assert that (concrete evidence indicates) this is definitely not works with me.
A relevant quote:
The quote is rather tongue in cheek but I would not rule out an element of truth (to the suggestion that without the externally enforced obligation more sex is required for maintenance and to secure marriage). In fact, high quality sources of dating advice often give suggestions on how manage such dynamics for the benefit of both parties.
I think you’re misinterpreting the scope of what I said. I didn’t say that lack of interest in sex was attractive—it isn’t.
I said, “isn’t always interested”—i.e., variable reinforcement. I think it’s the case that a man will be most satisfied in a relationship when his partner expresses sexual interest and attraction on an ongoing basis, but nonetheless does not say “yes” to all requests to do something about it, or has variability in how far that interaction proceeds. Having sex whenever a guy wants to is potentially as damaging to a relationship as never having sex at all, in the same way that too-difficult and too-easy tasks don’t lead to a “flow” state.
I’ve seen relationship advice for women that actually described a relationship in terms of a video game, advising that there always be new challenges and levels to unlock, so to speak, so that things don’t get too predictable. For that matter, I’ve seen relationship advice for men that was basically the same, although I find it amusing that it was the advice for women that used the videogame analogy. (And written by a female author, at that.)
(OTOH, men are stereotypically interested in videogames, so I guess explaining that you need to be like a videogame to keep a man interested would make more sense than the reverse analogy.)
Got you! (Although even so, observation suggest that isn’t what works best on me.)
I’ve actually seen a lot of good advice for guys of the form “If a girl did that how would you react? No, really. Well, it’s the same for girls.” Once people actually have a strongly developed self awareness that sort of direct empathy actually works rather well.
(OTOH, men are stereotypically interested in videogames, so I guess explaining that you need to be like a videogame to keep a man interested would make more sense than the reverse analogy.) True.
Be aware that I’m saying in the ideal case, the woman isn’t saying no because she doesn’t want to have sex, or doesn’t find you attractive at that moment. (Or even that she’s necessarily saying “no” at all.)
I’m saying that the “flow” experience comes about from having obstacles that are a good match for your skill at overcoming them. It can easily appear to the man in such a circumstance that he is in fact getting sex as often as he wants, just not as soon as he might want it. A good “courtship” videogame may provide hours or days of enjoyment for both parties, prior to unlocking a new level. ;-)
(In contrast, having “god mode” on for a game might be interesting for a time, but quickly become boring. The reason “crazy chicks” have a reputation for being good in bed may well be as much about the crazy before, as the bed after.)
So, I think we’ve now succeeded in having a conversation about what works to attract men, that might be able to be found as offensive as the reverse. Let’s see what happens. ;-)
I think you’re right. (And our conversation has also reached an agreement).
So, the sound bite version is “To get a man to commit, be a tease?”
Only in the same way that the pejorative and inaccurate soundbite for PUA is, “To get a woman to have sex, be a jerk.” There’s an awful lot lost in both translations. ;-)
Perhaps, I would say that better paraphrases the earlier comments in he conversation than the later ones.
I believe I was in college when “The Rules” came out, so a bit younger than its target demographic, but I recall that there was quite an uproar about it at the time. There was a lot of criticism about the advice being manipulative of men, but also somewhat anti-feminist and representing a step backward for women.
Heck, I even remember a series of Cathy cartoons dedicated to “The Rules,” with the takeaway being part horror (I seem to recall Cathy’s Aaaak!) , part fascination, part willingness to try it out because it just might work, or something like that. . . . and, ok, Cathy may not display perfect insight into the American woman’s psyche, but it tends to get the big trends right, or at least did so in that era
So, yeah, The Rules aren’t the hip new thing right now, but in its heyday, the book got a lot of attention and a lot of criticism, and it also sold a lot of copies. I think it’s a pretty fair comparison.
Sorry if I’m piling on.
I don’t think anyone here is saying: “listen to the women, they always know what is best”. Rather people are saying: “Hey men who know what women find attractive, you don’t need to phrase your true advice in such objectionable language.”
Not to bring this back to object level but I’m not sure “ordering them around” actually communicates good advice. There are circumstances where taking charge is attractive but it isn’t nearly as simple as “order them around” and I suspect whatever good advice is here can be phrased in a similarly unobjectionable way.
I wouldn’t go as far as to support the (absolute part of the) first claim but I certainly support the second.
I disagree. Naturally things aren’t simple (simple isn’t a Nash equilibrium in the dating game!) but ‘ordering them around’ is good advice, particularly to those who most need dating advice. That class of guys tends to associate receiving orders with resentment and so tends to have a failure of empathy when it comes to their expectations of how women will react to similar assertions. “Order them around” is what they need to hear while the more abstract “taking charge” crosses too much of an inferential gap.
I’ve seen more than one bit of PUA literature cross this gap by carefully pointing out how behavior X might seem asshole-ish among men, but is in fact perceived as positive quality Y when received by women from men, and further pointing out that it’s an error to assume this means one should act like an asshole in general.
Certainly, I don’t think teaching material should do any less. It’s likely that a properly framed discussion here relating the venusian arts to, say the Dark Arts, advertising, consent, consistent decision theories, etc. would also need to discuss both sides of that perceptual gap, at least in passing. (Albeit without so much detailed how-to info in between.)
That is a good way to teach it, even though it is somewhat of a lie (similar to teaching Newtonian physics). It usually isn’t healthy to teach about things that are actually perceived as a negative quality by women can also give desired results to men. That darker truth is best left until after people have developed their social skills and let go of their tendency to bury their frustration behind a façade of righteous indignation.
Huh? I don’t see the connection between this and what I was talking about.
More explicit:
There are two messages to convey:
Some things you (naive guys) think will be a bad experience for women are actually a good experience, healthy for them and perceived as desirable.
Some things that are absolutely bad, unhealthy and perceived as undesirable by women can also be used to attract them.
The first of these (and the one that you mention) is a better subject of education. The second is a recipe for excuses, passive aggression and bitterness for people who don’t already have an appreciation for the first point.
Yeah, the absolute part made it too strong.
We’re probably being too vague to evaluate this question. I read “order them around” and I picture men doing a lot of things that women probably won’t find very attractive. I suspect it might lead to the audience just trying to be mean to women thinking that will make them attractive. If I knew less about the subject that advice would lead me to do counterproductive things, I think. Language often needs to be tweaked for audiences that don’t understand right away. I might be in the minority when it comes to my interpretation of “ordering them around” but it really isn’t clear to me exactly what behaviors it recommends.
“Order them around” seems to be evocative of “Bitch, make me a sandwich!”
I actually have success (ie we both have fun and build attraction) when using such orders. But I do it playfully and there is a distinct element of counter-signalling involved (we both know I am not a controlling asshole) so how that data point relates to the topic is non-trivial.
Same here. But this is so context based I sort of doubt a bitter near-misogynist who just started reading attraction advice would be able to implement it correctly. In any case if this is the behavior that “order them around” recommends why not say “Women find it attractive when men can confidently joke and be ironic about traditional gender roles without worrying about being offensive.” And then give examples of this behavior and explain the counter-signaling going on.
Yes, counter-signaling is fun.
When orders are given sincerely, they are usually more subtle:
Call me.
Come hang out with us on Friday.
Hold my umbrella for a sec? (the words are an order by the tonality is a question)
Would you hold my drink for a sec. (The words are a question but the tonality is an order)
The purpose of such orders is not to control the other person, it is to signal status.
Another use of orders (and other forms of dominance) is a reactive one, specifically reacting to “bad” or “naughty” female behavior. I put those words in quotes because perception of what is “bad” or “naughty” is somewhat subjective. Anyone experienced with young women (at least in Western culture) knows that some female personality types sometimes engage in behavior with men that could be considered “bratty” or “naughty,” by the standard of general cultural norms. PUAs hypothesize that these women do so consciously or unconsciously as a “test.”
What many people reading about PUA techniques (either critics or newbies) don’t realize is that a lot of the more controversial techniques such as dominance and status tactics are used in a highly contextual way. So these behaviors that wouldn’t be justifiable if dropped out of the blue would be justifiable if done in context, such as the context of responding to a “test.”
I am not completely wedded to the PUA view of when a woman is “testing” or not, and I recognize that false positives in that area could lead to a woman’s perspective being disregarded incorrectly. Yet I do think there are many examples of female “bad”, “bratty”, or “naughty” behavior that are correctly described by the PUA model of testing, and which do require a response. And one type of response can be behavior that would be unacceptable (or “assholish”) in other contexts, such as giving orders or strong negs.
For instance, if a woman has spent the last 10 minutes poking him and the joke has worn off, then a PUA might give her an order like “Hey, stop being such a brat.”
The ethics of dominance behaviors is context-dependent, and one factor in context is whether the other person is engaging in behavior that would be culturally considered to justify that response. Here is an example with neg-like behavior, where Monday night I ended up negging a woman kind of hard, because I perceived it as justified (even though I don’t believe in negging out of the blue):
Her: I’m trying to find N… I am going to tell him something that will make him happy...
Me: You’re the bearer of good news, huh?
Her: Yeah, I’m going to hang out for him with a whole day this weekend! He’s been wanting me to for ages.
[Now, by cultural norms, her behavior is a bit of arrogant. She was signalling that she has higher status that N. Social circles have status hierarchies, but it’s still a bit arrogant to practically come out and say that you are higher status than someone. What she communicated was “I am so much higher status and attractive that another guy in our social circle is lucky to hang out with me… and what’s more, I am so high status and attractive that I can get away with this self-enhancement with you!” So she was indirectly asserting status over me, also. I couldn’t let this assertion of higher status from her go unchallenged.]
Me: Ok, so that’s the bad news you’re bearing… but what’s the good news?
Her: (it took her a sec to get that the joke was on her, then she replied slightly haughtily and petulantly) Hey, I bet you’d be stoked if I spent a day hanging out at your house! [We both know this is true, from our previous interaction, but it’s a status ploy for her to explicitly point this out. My perception that I was seeing a “test” was confirmed. I think her behavior would be intersubjectively considered a bit immature, even by feminists how would normally be skeptical of many male claims of female “bad behavior.”]
Me: That depends… are you tidy?
Her: Yeah, I’m tidy...
Me: Great! Then I would in fact be stoked about you coming over to my house… you could help me tidy up my laundry
Her: You’re a jerk, you know...
Me: Yeah, I know!
Her: (reaches over and rubs my arm. This was a signal of attraction that let me know that I was calibrated correctly, and that she had enjoyed my response to her test. If I had detected that I had actually hurt her feelings by calling her “bad news,” then I would have instead taken steps to make her feel better or even apologized if I was miscalibrated.)
I signalled: “I don’t agree with your assertion of status over our mutual friend N. In fact, I think you are violating the norm of ostensible equality between friends by so nakedly attempting to assert your status. I assert that my status is high enough that I am justified in calling you on this behavior and making fun of you for it by joking that you are “bad news” and lowering your status. I am so high status that I find your attempts at elevating your status above N amusing, implying that I actually view myself as at least as high status as you, not merely trying to act as high status as you. I am not threatened by your status imposition, which is why I feel no need to explicitly call you on it. I am not afraid of your potential negative reaction to my enforcement of this norm; I expect you to take this tease and accept it as a justified response from me. Since you tried to violate the norm and claim status you don’t actually have, you actually lowered your own status, which is why I am justified in raising my status above yours at this time and delivering the status-deflation you deserve. I can tell that you are testing me by seeing if I will let you get away with your status assertion, and the answer is that I won’t. If you attempt such a norm-violating level of self-enhancement in the future, I will quickly and immediately burst your bubble.”
...or something like those things. I consider this a defensive use of status games; I wouldn’t neg a woman this hard if she wasn’t violating a norm and attempting to inflate her status. If I had let her get away with that behavior, then she would think that I thought that she deserved that level of status. She would engage in similar behavior in the future, and keep attempting to raise her status until she eventually considered her status higher than mine. If that happened, then not only would it destroy her attraction to me, but it would also destroy any chance of us having a quality friendship. Soon she would be referring to me as yet another of the guys who would be lucky to hang out with her.
Counter-intuitively, the way to maintain equality in my interaction with her was to engage in a status game, and deflate her status in a way that would not be justified in another context, such as out of the blue. In context, my lowering of her status was a deflation of the excess status that she was trying to claim, which is morally different from attempting to lower someone’s status unprovoked. Notice also that my goal wasn’t to “lower her self-esteem” it was to lower her level of narcissism and illegitimate status assertion.
It is by understanding power that I can achieve equality. Remember, as I mentioned before, a typical mode of social interaction is to try to increase your status incrementally until people stop you (like i stopped her). Unless you confine yourself to a nerd ghetto where people don’t play this sort of status games (and status is decided more by competence than by what you can get away with), you will need to engage in social power dynamics, if only as a defensive measure.
Status behavior (which may include giving orders) in a defensive context is in a different moral category from status behavior in other contexts. I hope this lengthy analysis is useful to someone, and opens their eyes to the fun world of subcommunication. Questions or disagreement is invited.
I really enjoy your writing on this subject, it’s informative and ethically enlightened in a way that most discussion of such topics usually isn’t.
Returning to subject of my parent comment is there any reason this same advice couldn’t be communicated with “use imperative sentences” instead of “order them around”? The former seems both less offensive and less likely to lead to students being controlling (in a way that is poorly calibrated, unattractive and ethically ambiguous). I feel like it’s also worth noting that none of those examples are particularly unusual things to say. Among groups of platonic male heterosexuals of approximately equal status saying these things is totally routine and doesn’t even imply gaming or hidden agendas. The only reason it is meaningful advice for men trying to be more attractive to women is that the default behavior of so many men around women is to put them on a pedestal and start supplicating and self-flagellating. So some feminists are upset that PUAs are telling men to “order women around” when really a lot of the advice actually consists just telling them to treat women like the equals they are (I’ve said it before, treating someone as an equal doesn’t mean being super nice to them and deferring to them when possible). Part of this is probably feminists not looking at the actual advice closely enough, but I don’t think I could blame someone for thinking “order them around” implies something more offensive than “Call Me” (Do PUAs actually use the word “orders”? I don’t recall seeing it anywhere before this thread. The advice is familiar just not the wording.)
In fact, playing a status game with someone isn’t really the power play our language makes it out to be. A lot of time status games are just sort of skirmish played out between equals. The winner doesn’t really come out with significantly higher status, all they really get is something like a tip of the hat from those around them. This why, again returning to platonic male heterosexual relationships, guys can make fun of each other without permanent damage. It’s sort of like practicing, or like the way baby animals rough house. In fact, not only is there no permanent damage, this kind of behavior (at least in my experience, and at least this seems to be the conventional message) makes male heterosexual friendships stronger.
So when a man engages in a status game with a woman in addition to object level status claims like:
there is also sort of a meta-signaling of: “I think you are worthy competition and therefore about equal in status to me.” And like with male heterosexual friendships this kind of thing improves rapport. I actually think such status skirmishes might be quite central to healthy egalitarian relationships.
I agree. I think this element is what made the interaction mutually fun and attractive.
It would be helpful to have been there, to hear the tone throughout the exchange and observe your body language together, but I believe the interaction you describe seems familiar to me.
I agree she was testing you, and the outcome of the test was positive as she indicated by the affectionate body language of touching your arm. However, my interpretation of the test is more straightforward—I’d guess she was just seeking affirmation that you like spending time with her. I’ve often noticed that social norms (like modesty) are relaxed among women with men, especially if the context is flirtation. Also if she was testing you, she might have felt justified in relaxing the norm in order to get a more dependable test result.
I wonder to what extent generally, in male hacking of female social interaction with them, they’re coming up with the correct behaviors with the wrong theories behind them.
I think I would find the “bad news” poke you gave—which, funnily enough, is an aggression I would have incorrectly interpreted as provoked by jealousy rather than a disapproval of her status grab—more coy (and possibly more attractive) than a straight signal that you would be jealous and want her to hang with you. Instead, the counter-punch you gave signaled the desire to be with her without creating a request to contend with. It also seems attractive along the lines of a male acting more stereotypically male in an endearing way (jealous, and not admitting it).
I think you could have also passed the test by a straight signal that you liked hanging with her: “No, don’t hang out with him this weekend. Hang out with me.” In this case, you would also be signaling sincerity and a desire for a relationship, which may or may not have been appropriate for either of you. If you guys are “just friends”, then you could have the same response, but then I would expect you to overdo it a little until there is a laugh / affectionate punch on the arm.
I have more to say in response, but I will clarify one thing: the “bad news” jibe wasn’t implying that it was bad news for me that she was hanging out with him, it was implying that it was bad news for the other guy that she was hanging out with. I think that implication came across, because of her response which was to claim that I would want to hang out with her (which as interpreted as “any guy would want to hang out with me, including you, which is why it’s justified for me to so blatant assert that a guy is lucky to do so”).
I’m not sure if that’s why you interpreted my jibe as displaying jealousy; but if given my intended interpretation, I do agree that it could have subcommunicated jealousy, like a case of “sour grapes” on my part (which is slightly true, though not the primary reason for the jibe).
Yes, this is what I understood.
Only because a jealous response seemed to be expected and solicited. So I predicted she would have interpreted the jibe as a form of sour grapes, as I would have if I was eavesdropping on the conversation. (“You’re going to spend the whole day with him? … Poor him!” is an appropriately funny and defensive jealousy response.) However, from your description of the interaction, I understood that you weren’t actually displaying jealousy and she and I would have been somewhat mistaken about the initial effectiveness of her test. But then it lead to a conversation in which you did signal the desire to be with her, anyway.
I wouldn’t give this advice to a bitter near-misogynist (and don’t have a special interest in advising bitter near-misogynists, that doesn’t usually work all that well anyway). I would give it to ‘good boys’ who are still under the impression that the polite supplication that sometimes works for keeping mommy happy is attractive to female peers. It opens up a whole new world to them.
Because I consider this tangent distinctly different from the original ‘order them around’ discussion. In particular, I don’t think ‘order them around’ implies ‘refer to them as bitches’.
(I didn’t reject ChronoS’ claimed evocation because the tangent is interesting and had no inclination to invalidate his contribution. For the purpose of your attempt to build upon that evocation as a shared premise I do reject it.)
(insert joke about finding someone’s root password here)
All the instantiations I can think of make me laugh out loud. Too true. :)
Thats fine, I was just trying to clarify my initial position.
Edit:… since the disagreement we had seemed too ambiguous to continue discussing.
Also trivial and completely unimportant!
Cool, I didn’t care about it either.
Really? Are we looking at the same forum? Because of all criticisms of PUA discussion, I never saw anything of that form—most importantly, I don’t remember acknowledgement that it is true (just as society in general won’t admit it). Those who found it objectionable, like this characteristic poster, demanded much more serious straitjackets:
That’s way beyond, “hey, use less objectionable language when making these true claims about what women find attractive”. Don’t you think so?
Agree With What You Are Saying But Good Pickup Advice Would Recommend Ignoring That Frame Rather Than Validating It. (AWWYASBGPAWRITFRTVI?)
Sorry, “here” is ambiguous. I meant in the discussion presently occurring, perhaps I should have just said pjeby is only saying that but I felt like my statement applied to everyone who replied to your comments recently.
My position is here. But yes, past discussions involved broader disagreement. I mostly meant that I didn’t think your interpretation of pjeby’s comment was accurate.
(ETA: I’m sympathetic to a lot of what she says but I’m not sure I’d agree alicorn was “characteristic” in that particular discussion.)
I’m wondering about this “taking charge” thing. Does it just apply when the woman isn’t very sure about what she wants? Or also when the male overrides a clear desire of hers? What if the man takes charge and turns out to be wrong about the outcome?
The main context it’s discussed in is situations where no-one has expressed a strong preference. In the case of conflicting preferences, men are advised to be clear and non-deferential regarding their preferences, without necessarily “overriding” anything. The point is to show initiative and non-wishiwashiness, not to push people around.
Then how he handles that is the next test. ;-)
I saw an interesting discussion of the movie “300” that sort of relates to this. Someone said that in almost every action movie, there is a woman who wants the man to stay with her and not go do the dangerous thing that’s his mission in life. But, if he were the sort of man who would stay—who’d, before going off to war against the Persians, would say, “you’re right honey, I should just stay here with you and the kids”—then she wouldn’t have been attracted to him in the first place.
And, if he did change his mind and stay, the attraction and romance in the relationship would pretty much die right away.
So the advice to “take charge” is really just to be the sort of man who doesn’t let a woman talk him into things for the sake of immediate pleasure (or lack of immediate conflict), at the expense of long-term interests. Such a man may be too easily convinced to leave or to cheat by a different woman, and be a lousy protector who won’t do difficult or painful things in his family’s interest.
So, the function of taking charge is that the man must demonstrate that he can tell the difference between what a woman says she wants and what’s actually best in a given situation, as well as his nature as a man of constancy, certainty, and initiative. It’s not really about making decisions, per se.
(For example, some “chivalrous” gestures like opening a door, pulling out a chair, or giving your arm to someone can be forms of “taking charge” in the sense that they show purpose and initiative, even though no decision is really being made, nor are any orders being given.)
That’s fictional evidence—that is, not evidence at all. All I’m sure of is it’s harder to make a movie about the guy who stayed home, though you could do it if trouble came looking for him.
It’s not evidence but it is a good illustration that helps point people to intuitive understanding that they already have.
The person who wrote that was pointing to the fiction to give a point of common reference for his observation of the dynamics between men and women, not using the movie as his evidence.
The author’s observation (and mine) was that women tend to lose respect (and thus attraction) for a man who they can talk into delaying or abandoning things the man says are important to him. The movie version is just that idea writ large.
The initiative and non-wishiwashiness is the most important factor but sometimes the actual override/push people around part is a useful signal in its own right too, if done skillfully.
That’s the part that’s really hard to communicate in a soundbite, or really to communicate verbally at all.
Especially since ‘do exactly the same thing but be two inches taller’ can completely change the outcome.
Sometimes it is best to just suggest ‘err to the other side to what you are used to’. That makes the difference between what works and what doesn’t much easier to spot so the countless subtle differences in context can be learned more readily.
With trivial desires it probably applies. With significant desires not so much. The line between the two is probably fuzzy but has obvious extremes. How strongly the woman holds the desire matters too, I suppose. I don’t know if I can say more without context: I don’ t teach people how to be attractive so I’m not good at spelling all the intricacies out. I just know enough to make it work for me.
You’d have to be more specific but I suspect the outcome usually doesn’t matter.
Or maybe the really effective thing to do is to know which type of behavior to exhibit when (so much of social skill is about context-sensitivity); all-out dominant behavior is more effective in some cases than all-out the other direction (‘submissive’ seems like the wrong term) or ham-fisted attempts at variation, so advice to adopt all-out dominant behavior, combined with the idea that the other sort of behavior is completely ineffective, persists among men who are less skilled and interested in those cases; and women introspecting on what they want get that they want both but don’t get the context-dependence, or don’t realize it needs to be said.
I don’t disagree with any of that, but note that this failure of introspection on the part of (influential) women on this matter is exactly what my thesis has been all along. And I wouldn’t tolerate that from myself, or from men either, especially if such advice had the impact that the widely-taught (and wrong) male-to-female engagement rules has.
No, but you are definitely not supposed to be bitter about it. ~1,000 times on OvercomingBias:
Speak for yourself! :-)
[1] Which counts as sexual harassment, btw (unless you’re really hot).
Only in specific environments. And then, yes, the offence is mostly ‘making sexual advances without being hot enough to get away with it’. Outside of a place where sexual harassment claims are an option it would instead just get demeaning looks.
The negative reactions may have to do with the fact that such advice—and indeed, a comment like the above—amounts to accusing half the audience of a very blatant form of hypocrisy. Obviously one should exercise extreme caution when making such an accusation, and it had better be backed up with some pretty solid evidence—to say nothing of the pragmatic considerations of whether there is much to be gained by voicing such truths (if they are in fact true).
Yes, lots of people probably don’t tell the truth about what is sexually attractive to them. But if you go around saying “women are such hypocrites”, it’s understandable for a woman hearing this to take it as a personal insult. (If you didn’t mean for her to be insulted, you wouldn’t say it that way.)
What if you go around saying “almost everyone, whatever their gender, has poor insight into their preferences and responses”?
By the way: Welcome to Less Wrong!
I summarized some of the research on stated vs. actual preferences here. It seems to show that both men and women are often wrong about what they go for, but women may well be more wrong. However, I’ve only found a few studies like this so far, and I want to see more to feel confident about that conclusion.
An important clarification: it’s not the hypocrisy per se that I object to, but its institutionalization, the massive failure to recognize the unqualification to give advice, and the tremendous benefits accruing to those who are “wise” enough to ignore women. See why that might be objectionable?
Okay. How about my life history, plus that of pretty much everyone joining the PUA crowd or identifying with its message?
I’m sure you can see that exactly one of those pieces of advice is ambiguous, and easily disambiguated as advice to engage in genuinely wrong behavior. I think that some sorts of people, which I would expect to overlap with the sorts of people opposed to pickup, tend to directly leap from a statement being potentially harmful to express, to that statement and its speaker being Bad. (Another example: statements about the basis of intelligence and race/sex correlations, with their genuine usefulness to bigots.) I don’t think that this is entirely incorrect of them, either instrumentally or epistemically — such statements are Bayesian evidence of bad character, for both direct and signaling reasons.
PS: Don’t be so sarcastic.
I accept that the advice I listed can be ambiguous. I also claim that a very large class of men has been so horribly misled by the official line on male-to-female interaction rules, that even the above advice, in its crude form, in its rank misogyny, would actually cause them to be more attractive to women—which just goes to show the depths of their deception.
Btw, what was sarcastic? Men who present the plain truth on this are the target of severe vitriol from women (even and especially those for whom it is true) and men who recognize its truth, but want to appear part of the “reasonable” crowd. My illustration of the vitriol is exaggerated, but not by much. And the misleading advice women promote does in fact mirror the official line (in mainstream books, advice from women, behavior taught in schools, etc.). What are you objecting to?
And yet, you seem to object to framing the truth in terms that women usually like and respond positively to… which makes me wonder WTF your actual goals are here.
Oh noes, people don’t like language they don’t like, and I am being forced to use the language of the oppressors in order to talk with them about anything. Help, I’m being oppressed!
Damn, dude, this is like saying you ought to have the right to describe people using racial epithets, simply because the epithets are included in statements that are true, like “That [epithet] is wearing blue jeans.”
In NLP there’s a saying that the meaning of a communication is the response you get. If you want a different response, try a different communication already, and stop bothering everyone with this low-status whining. It’s a disgrace to everyone you claim to be speaking for, and everything you claim to be standing for.
Where are you getting that? I’m not objecting to framing the truth in a professional, reasoned tone. I’m objecting to your attempt to claim that two phrasings mean the same thing, when they really don’t, thereby promoting a sort of uninformative politician-speak, as I explained here (and which you didn’t address):
You seem to really be taking the concept of “ordering a woman around” to mean so freaking many benign things that the term no longer has any meaning. Doing so voids the usefulness of words and cripples the ability to clearly communicate on the issues.
“A man who knows what he wants, and isn’t afraid to say it” does not, as you claim, equate to giving orders. And yet, PUAs do advise “giving orders”, while an uninformed man who was simply told to “know what you want, and don’t be afraid to say it” would not at all see how this means giving orders … because the concept thereof isn’t entailed by that advice!
While a professional, uninflammatory tone is preferable, it should never delete the substance of the claim, but that’s exactly what your supposed rephrasings do.
The meaning of the communication is the response you get, and the intended response to the behavior described as “ordering around” is that the woman feel that she is with a man who “knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to say it”.
By omitting the intended response from the discussion, it is you who are distorting the communication.
So, why does it then surprise you if women feel excluded, when you are systematically excluding their goals and values from the discussion?
You are insisting that your particular selection of concepts is “the truth”, when it is also the truth that women describe the benefits of these behavioral patterns in ways you deride as “uninformative politician-speak”.
But clearly, it is NOT uninformative to women! They know what they like, but have difficulty breaking it into smaller chunks because they have evolved recognition machinery for it. And that is not their fault.
And just because at one time you didn’t understand what this woman-speak means in men-speak, does not entitle you to claim that all women are therefore deluded, unhelpful liars and hypocrites, engaging in a campaign of mass deception to keep oppressed low-status men in their place with the conspiratorial assistance of the mass media.
This entire post was because of “exclusionary speech”—talking about women in a way that excludes their goals and values from consideration. That’s exactly what you’re doing—not just omitting those goals and values from your own statements, but actually objecting when anybody else brings them up.
Are you really not noticing this?
No, by casually equating means (“give orders”) with ends (“a woman who feels she is with a confident man who knows what he wants”) -- an equation you just now revealed you are using! -- it’s you who’s distorting communication.
No, I’m systematically using words by their standard meanings; the discussion of the ends is not, like you claim, being excluded; it’s just that you need to identify it as such. Don’t say “X and Y are the same instruction because they would, in the best case scenario, get the same reaction.” That’s wrong, and a misuse of language.
No, I’m calling it uninformative when it uses the wrong terms and acts surprised that I didn’t read minds for the real intended meantings.
No, like I said before, even if you can claim specific instances of women giving advice that (by hidden transformations) is true and useful, it’s still drowned out in the sea of advice that is ineffective and countereffective. How should I have known that this advice is reliable, but the (far more numerous) instances of “oh, be deferential to her, make sure not to cross these six trillion feminist lines” isn’t? How should the majority of men have known it?
Just women, or women and men? I make a genuine effort to convert my “recognition machinery” into something communicable. I don’t tolerate “you wouldn’t understand” as a curiousity-stopper from anyone, not me, not men. Why do you (seem to) think women are so frail and stupid that they shouldn’t be expected to carry out this introspection?
This is the part where the problem is: you aren’t separating “words that make sense to me” from “real intended meanings”… which then leads to an exclusionary result.
How should you have known that the world is round, when all of the immediately-available evidence is that it’s flat… unless you specifically go looking for obscure and “hidden” information?
Reality is not under any obligation to be comprehensible to human beings, so what makes you think you have a moral right to have comprehension handed to you on a silver platter?
Because, being a human, I’m too “frail and stupid” to carry out the reverse introspection in response to a casual inquiry. I also don’t expect the average person of either sex to have the degree of intellectual rigor required to refrain from confabulating, when asked.
(My own experience shows me that it is hard to get people to not confabulate, about any topic. Non-confabulation is unnatural to most humans and requires sometimes-difficult training, even if you’re highly motivated to learn… and people who think they already understand confabulation and the need to refrain from it are usually the ones who have the most difficulty learning not to.)
There are points in here that have value but they are not a reasonable (or particularly relevant) as a reply to the objection that Silas has made. Silas makes enough of a target of himself. You need not pad him out with straw.
No. The intended response to the behaviour is not that. Or, at least, it is not just that. You can not demand that Silas use language that does not express what he is trying to say just because it happens to fit neatly into your own model.
More generally, it is unreasonable to expect people to comply to the quote from the NLP guru, regarding the meaning of a communication, least of all on a site that emphasises epistemic rationality. Yes, it is a useful concept but your appeal to ‘the meaning is the response’ to try to reverse a claim of who is distorting the communication is ‘clever’ but far from sound.
Your words do not convey the information (to women, or anyone else) that Silas was trying to convey. Don’t insist that he use them.
You are taking significant liberty in applying negative spin to Silas’s claims here. More liberty than that which you presume to deny Silas in his claims. Be consistent.
But omitting the part of the behavior that women do say they value, is the part that makes the language exclusionary, and provokes the objections and social stigma that SilasBarta claims to be arguing against.
His thesis appears to be, “Most women (and some men) don’t like it when people say truth X”—I am saying, “Most women (and some men) are generally fine with it when you also give sufficient information for them to connect truth X with their goal or value Y, and I see no reason to exclude that connective information… since it does in fact produce the negative reaction described.”
Agree, some of the suggested replacements destroy the communication. pjeby is naturally trying to force your words into a nice sounding (mostly true) framework that does not necessarily have room for your actual position. That’s just what pjeby does in general. But in this instance do consider HughRistik’s comment:
You know what I think replacing ‘ordering her around’ with ‘give orders’ does? It gets rid of politician-speak. You are trying to embed a message in there, and it obfuscates the advice. (And this is just an example from a trend!)
I don’t know what trend you mean or if there’s a chain of things I’ve been doing wrong; I do admit that I didn’t even notice that “order her around” and “give orders” were different phrases to begin with, since I kept lumping them together. Your distinction between the two is noted, and appreciated.
Consider the suggested trend to be “not being hyper-vigilant about differences like ‘order her around’ vs ‘give orders’ when the political context makes nearly anything an invitation to umbrage”.
So, ignoring your caricature...
On one hand we have advice that is about body posture, and on the other hand we have advice that is about persuading yourself of things that are not true, such as thinking of an adult human as if they were a child.
And your question is why people react differently to either kind of advice, have I got that right?
So, ignoring your classification of cleavage as “body posture” …
On one hand, we have advice for male-to-female engagement that has a solid history of enhancing male attractiveness and which is enjoyed by females, and on the other hand we have advice that is about manipulating men’s hardwired judgment mechanisms, thereby subverting their better long-term interests.
And your question is why people condemn the first kind of advice, have I got that right?
Just because your objection parallels my comment in form doesn’t automatically make its content a correct refutation; and someone other than me has warned you that the tactic doesn’t serve you particularly well.
Do you or do you not agree that “think of her as a child” involves changing your mental state, while “show cleavage and arch your back” does not?
Your reply above directs attention away from this difference and toward the supposed “history of success” of the first form of advice.
This is shifting the goalposts, if your intent is still to understand why the first form is more often objected to. Whether the advice is sound or not is a separate matter.
Not sticking to one query is a classic reason why threads go out of hand (as this one has, once again).
I’m aware of how people get angry when their own argument methods are turned around and force them to think critically about the basis for their own beliefs—though I don’t think that’s happening in your case. (The anger on your part isn’t happening, I mean—I do believe you are reflecting critically on your own beliefs, or at least are making a genuine effort.)
The point of me mimicking your form was not to be cute (although that was a neat side effect), but rather, to show that a simple reframing of the issue—by highlighting different salient aspects—would reverse the “obvious” answer to your question.
You claim advice about body posture to be benign, while believing false, offensive things is obviously bad by comparison. (The latter is a strawman of course: the advice is to, like an actor, go into a different mindset in order to have a generating function for your actions, which turns out to be preferable by the “target” of it. The advice is not to believe that adult women are disobedient children as if it were some more objective or universal aspect of reality.)
Of course I agree, but this is a poor metric. Isn’t it more important what the advice causes in the other party’s mind? If “think of her as a child” generates actions, on my part, that the woman deems preferable, what does it matter that my mental state is changed? If a woman uses attire and posture that causes me to “think below the waist”, isn’t the impact on my mental state more important—because of the diminishing of informed consent [1] -- than the impact on the woman’s mental state?
Because, as explained above, it’s not apparent how that’s a relevant metric or difference.
If the advice actually benefits women, that should negate any objectionability of the advice that is grounded on harm to women. Failure to speak frankly about the commonality of the kind of woman benefitting, while instead giving full weight to the supposedly-universal preferences of the most vocal feminists … to me, that looks like a social failing.
[1] Yes, yes, I lose status by mentioning that this can happen, &c. C’est la vie.
It isn’t usually a successful tactic, which is somewhat of a shame, given that it can serve to demonstrate how a particular (mis)use of argument is flawed. People on average don’t have the respect for consistency that I would prefer.
I don’t, and could write an essay or three on the subject. But that’s not where your rhetorical intent is leading you...
OK, we’re at least getting closer to something concrete:
do you think neither of the above is about changing your mind
do you think both of the above are about changing your mind
do you think the polarities are opposite to the ones I’m assuming?
It seems to me that “think of her as a child” is objectionable for the same reason that “think of the moon as being made of green cheese” would be: the proposition in question is false.
Whereas showing cleavage and arching your back have no comparable epistemic content. There is no “true shape of the breasts” or “true posture of the body”, no facts of the matter that warrant a comparison as in the other case.
If it takes an essay to state where you stand on those, I’m happy to wait until later. But if you can briefly state your objection, I’d be interested to hear it.
In the grandparent here I merely allude to the claim that humans cannot change their body language, particularly sexual body language without it being about changing their mental state. Body and mind are just too linked, such that advice about ‘thoughts’ is often intended to work by changing posture and vise versa. But this is tangential and not related to the actual disagreement I have with your argument.
See earlier reply. You misunderstand the suggestion. Replace ‘think’ with ‘treat her as though’ (and don’t leave out the ‘disobedient’ in either case) and I would expect the same (or a worse) reaction even though it completely avoids your technical epistemic objection.
ETA: I deleted the grandparent before Morendil replied. Not because I don’t support it but because I decided it would just be distracting. It was. ;)
“Treat her as if she were a disobedient child” still strikes me as predictably objectionable, because the statement is being made about an adult woman, which should screen off obedience being an issue; obedience isn’t expected of adults.
The specific bit of PUA advice we’re discussing here amounts to paternalism. Showing cleavage doesn’t. This is why people—men and women—object to the former more readily than to the latter. (Some men may approve of paternalism, but they are just wrong.)
What’s so outlandish about all that?
I don’t reject ‘all that’. I did rejected a specific straw man you presented for the reasons I have already mentioned and. I don’t feel obliged to suggest that your claims here are outlandish since I am not particularly opposed to your overall position. That is, I think both you and Silas have valid points but I would not support either position as they stand, preferring a different emphasis (and a whole heap less moral judgement).
(Allow me to engage in the obedience/paternalism subject in a different comment, since that moves us to a somewhat different claim, where the lines are not already drawn in the sand.)
This is my view also. I agree with practically all your commentary on their discussion.
It is expected by sexy adults. It is also often given to those same adults ;)
No it doesn’t. Someone would have to think of a different pejorative term. If they were into that sort of thing.
People in general don’t object to the former more readily than the latter. It varies drastically with personality type, sex and subculture. The people that most object to paternalism are male nerds while the people that (I expect to) most approve of paternalism are conservative religious women. I have seen each of those classes of advice condemned to different degrees in different communities that I have been involved in.
Ouch. That sounds like just the sort of ideal that provoke outrage in the face of practical advice.
I am not a huge fan of paternalism myself. In fact, I have in the past ended a relationship with a woman because I just wasn’t willing to be as paternalistic as she desired. I don’t begrudge her that preference and certainly don’t think she is just wrong for preferring a more paternalistic dynamic than I do.
Why those groups in particular? They are toward those ends, but I think I would have (maybe superficially/naively) said “radical feminists” and “conservative religious men”, respectively. Don’t necessarily disagree, but I’m very curious.
Those were just listed off the top of my head and biased towards groups and situations in which the advice is most relevant.
I suppose you may be right about he radical feminists with respect to paternalism, although I don’t naturally distinguish between common behaviour patterns based on the genitalia of the actor. I’m going with Morendil’s word here but to the extent that ‘paternalism’ implies ‘when done by males’ I would perhaps want to use a different word.
“Parentalism”?
(And “maternalism” when done by females? ;-))
Those groups do lie towards each end, but why do you say they’re the extremes? Why not, oh, the superficial obvious guesses “radical feminists” and “conservative religious men”? I don’t necessarily disagree, but I’m very curious.
This leaves out whether you mean adults who like sex or adults who you consider attractive, not to mention whether it’s true of everyone in either of those categories, or whether it’s just some proportion.
It also doesn’t quantise just how ‘often’ the obedience is given to that proportion, what the exact scope of commands over which such obedience is granted, what measures of age and or maturity allow the designation ‘adult’, which group of adults are those doing the obeying and what level of obsequiousness is expected during compliance.
Hopefully what were clear were the assertions:
Obedience of the kind described is in fact expected of adults at times.
Having this expectation has a clear influence on sexual attraction.
You’ve got this backwards. Manipulating a man’s perception of attractiveness in order to secure short-term mating is in a man’s (evolutionary) interest. Manipulating a woman’s perception of attractiveness to secure short-term mating, on the other hand, is not in a woman’s (evolutionary) interest.
(Also, you conveniently ignored the bit where both manipulations are enjoyed by the recipients. If I weren’t so certain you sincerely believe in your biased perspective, I’d have to conclude you were deliberately trolling at this point.)
pjeby said:
Nope, this is outdated. I’ll try to return to it, but there are actually a lot of hypotheses that suggest that some types of short-term mating were adaptive for females. See the good genes hypothesis, sexy son hypothesis, and Hrdy’s work on female choice.
(Practically everything else you’ve said in this discussion is gold, btw, so I hope you’ll forgive me for being brusque.)
Why would men have evolved to have perceptions of attractiveness that don’t track (are more conservative, when not manipulated, than would be in) their evolutionary interest?
Also, I thought we were talking about normative interests, what’s actually good for someone. Why are you bringing up evolutionary interests in the first place?
This. Also the bit where both manipulations affect hardwired judgment mechanisms, of course.
You’re filling in things that aren’t there. A woman can use her looks to get non-sexual favors out of men, and the advice that gets her to that level of looks is widely and unashamedly given (though not of course the suggestion to use it for bad manipulation).
The advice that would get men to a comparable level of attractiveness (i.e. even using non-sexual manipulation goals as the standard), by contrast, is not widely and unashamedly given.
The parallel therefore holds, despite the difference in goals.
Unless you’re talking about non-sexual mating goals, you’ve now broken the symmetry yourself.
Why don’t you spell out the mapping? Because everything looks parallel to me. Let’s start from the beginning. I reversed Morendil’s characterization of male vs. female attractiveness advice to cast the latter in a bad light:
On what basis do you dispute that this accurately describes effective female-sexiness-enhancing advice? Sure, men would enjoy it if she used it get sexual favors … but they wouldn’t enjoy it if she used it to get them to do non-sexual favors (with a false hint of the chance for sex).
So, the quoted advice most certainly does count as being “against men’s long-term interests”, like I claimed. And (to tie it back in to the original topic), women can easily get accurate information about how to get to this attractiveness state. Men? Not so much. (Sorry for the cliche.)
Are you saying that even known-false sexual attention from attractive females isn’t enjoyed by men? Men pay for this at strip clubs and other places all day long.
I still don’t see the symmetry here. If you’re looking at things from the POV of mating goals, there is no bias—women have just as much difficulty getting accurate information, if not more, since there isn’t nearly as large a reverse-PUA industry for getting men to commit to long-term relationships.
If you’re discussing non-mating goals, then materials like “How To Marry A Rich Man” are just as socially-denigrated as pickup.
Last—and utterly devastating to your claims—there are widely available materials that explain how to be attractive to women, but which do not aim at sex as their goal, and these materials do not suffer from the same social stigma (because, as with women’s beauty materials, they are about improving the attractor rather than manipulating the attractee).
Specifically, plenty of books and other materials are available to teach men how to be stylish, sociable, and confident, quite well enough to improve their chances of being able to get sex from women with the “false hint” of a chance for a relationship or good genes.
The only way in which you can force an asymmetry to exist here, is if you either deliberately compare materials with asymmetric goals in areas where men and women are symmetric in inclination, or compare materials with symmetric goals in areas where men and women are asymmetric in inclination. This makes yours a tortured argument and extremely limited evidence of your position.
In contrast, under every other way of comparing the situation for men and women, we see:
Similar social stigma for things that state as their goal the manipulation of the opposite sex as an object to achieve the target audience’s goals
Similar lack of stigma for things that state as their goal the improved attractiveness of the target audience for the benefit of themselves and the opposite sex, and
Similar stigma for either admitting to true-things-that-work but are socially repugnan, with the expected relative lack of available advice concerning such socially-stigmatized truths.
The only way I can see to claim asymmetry under these conditions is to start from a premise of asymmetry, and then torture the facts until they give in.
I must emphasise that “but do not have sex as the goal” is a completely different issue to “they are about improving the attractor rather than manipulating the attractee”. Having sex as a goal isn’t manipulative. In fact, acknowledging that sex is a goal can make the approach far less manipulative than if a façade of political correctness is maintained but sex is still sought after.
No, that clearly isn’t what Silas is saying there. He is talking about hints that actually give a deceptive indication that sex is likely to be granted if favours are done. (To which I would always add a ‘shame on you if she fools you twice’ emphasis.)
Well, it wasn’t clear to me—especially since that would make it equivalent to men’s false declarations of love or resources to get sex… and the information allowing men to do that is just as available as the information that allows women to know they could false-promise sex to get resources.
And in both cases, the behavior is looked down on by society.
So, it would’ve been an odd interpretation for me to read into what he said, given that I was trying to interpret his evidence in the best possible light, not the worst one. ;-)
(i.e., refute your opponent’s strong points, not the weak ones)
I agree about the equivalence.
I suggest that the ‘false declaration of love to get sex’ is frowned upon far more than ‘false hint of sex to get resources’. The treatment of the ‘victim’ in each case tends to be different too (the sympathy vs contempt balance is different).
I’m not sure which of Silas or your positions this claims supports since I’m not particularly attached to either. I argue that the significant asymmetry is different in nature to that being primarily debated here.
No, you clearly haven’t. The caricature you use in your dichotomy is absurd.
If people men are literally persuading themselves that women they wish to attract are children and then seducing them then they are acting, by intent, as paedophiles. Clearly the message trying to be sandwiched into ‘think of her as a disobedient child’ means something different. Something a lot more analogous to cleavage presentation in terms of the role played in attraction.
It’s a good thing the English language has a milder word for the milder fallacy: “paternalism”. It’s still a fallacy, though.
No. Someone seducing someone they believe is a child then it isn’t anything to do with paternalism.
Again, your dichotomy is absurd. ‘Thinking of her like a disobedient child’ does not mean ‘persuading yourself of things that are not true’. Dating advisors don’t recommend that men seduce females that they believe are children but still sometimes give this advice. They do not mean ″persuading yourself of things that are not true’.
Right, they mean “acting as if.” By the way, Silas summary of that advice is a tiny bit extreme. I do hear “be dominant,” and I sometimes hear “give orders,” but “ordering her around” in general is not something I hear so commonly. I do hear “treat her like your bratty little sister” sometimes.
Agree. “Give orders” is both a more accurate and useful advice and less provocative. That more balanced description would have saved rather a lot of hassle, even though there would still be disagreement.
The bit about the terrorists was also a little exaggerated. Amusing though.
It’s not very precise, though. The part that actually makes the difference isn’t having the orders, it’s knowing what to “order”.
Which is one reason that I think leaving out, “knowing what you want” is actually losing an important piece. Without being sufficiently clear as to what you want and why—preferably a why that is good for the woman as well as you—you don’t have anything to “back up” your status bid.
I have seen much better ways of describing this than “give orders”, but they all take more than a couple of words.
And so I think it’s better, if we have to be imprecise in a discussion of this here, to err on the side of being imprecise in a way that doesn’t omit women’s goals and values, since that’s the whole bloody point of this comment thread… to discuss ways to avoid exclusionary language.
No pj. There is a difference between ‘not very precise’ and ‘saying something different to what I want him to be saying’.
‘Knowing what you want’ is important. But it is not what the subject of the expression is about. The advice “give orders” and applies even independently of knowing what you want.
That you are continuing to insist that Silas refine his words with words that don’t mean the same thing is both poor communication and outright rude. Desist.
I see here three different concepts to track:
The literal thing the PUA’s say.
What the PUA’s actually mean.
What is actually effective.
It seems the Silas and PJ both think that 2 and 3 are the same or very close (the PUA’s are right), but they disagree on what that is.
So I don’t think PJ is trying to tell Silas to say the thing Silas believes 2 and 3 are in a different way, so much as disagreeing with Silas about what 2 and 3 are. It is a challenge to Silas’ assertion that the thing PUA’s say that provokes offense is actually right.
Actually, I’d say the four things to track (and this is actually simplifying a bit) are:
What the PUA’s say,
The specific behaviors meant, and
Women’s positive description of what perceiving those behaviors “feels like from the inside”
What’s actually “effective”, for some set of goals
Silas claims that #1 is “the truth” and #3 is “uninformative politician-speak”. I claim that omitting #3 from the discussion is (rightly) perceived as exclusionary and is therefore not a good idea.
AFAICT, we both agree that #3 is insufficient information for a man to understand #2 without #1, but Silas appears to claim that #3 is actively misleading and contradictory, as well as unnecessary.
I dispute this claim, however, since I found #3 to be of vital importance in translating #1 into #2, as well as being polite to include in a conversation for a general audience.
Of course, there is still the possibility that we actually disagree on #2 -- in particular, it may be that Silas is correct in saying that #3 is misleading relative to his perception of #2. (In which case, I think he has a mistaken understanding relative to #4 -- or at least, the version of #4 that relates to my goals for relationships.)
Whew. Complicated enough for you yet? ;-)
To the extent Silas and I disagree wrt goals for #4, or what’s actually meant by #2, the discussion is likely to be incoherent, so I suspect that may be the real problem. I’ve been attributing this incoherence to Silas being blinded by his emotions about the topic, but it’s certainly possible that it’s due to something else, such as a deeper disagreement on some premise we think we agree on.
This is an interesting point. I think that a factor in whether or not a discussion of the venusian arts is perceived as offensive, is whether the goals it claims (or is perceived) to achieve aligns with the goals of the target.
The inclusion of your #3, while being inclusive in its own right, also serves to signal the alignment of goals.
I suppose the proper adjective “venereal” has been too tainted by association with disease for anything but giggle-worthy use.
My use of “venusian arts” was adopting PJEby’s vocabulary first? used here.
Yeah, I think it is good to stay away from the connotations of “venereal”.
OTOH “venusian” sounds like it’s about the planet.
Fairly straightforward, but also a reiteration of a straw man. Silas has repeatedly rejected the position you are ascribing to him and your continued misrepresentation is extremely poor form.
I imagine it would be, if I had any clue what you’re talking about. But I don’t.
You make assertions about what Silas claims (see grandparent). Silas has told you that this is not what he claims (and I have reiterated it in his defence). You engage in straw man fallacies. I dislike this behaviour.
You may disagree with the above, but to not have a clue what I’m talking about is motivated ignorance.
And it is not at all clear to me which specific assertions about Silas’s claims you are talking about. Perhaps it would be helpful if you could quote the specific segments of my summary comnment which you are saying are inaccurate regarding what you believe to be Silas’s claims, along with what claim you believe he’s making instead.
The time at which this conversation stopped being useful (in my estimation) was about 20 comments ago. For all my progress in self awareness I am sometimes slow to remember my policy of non-engagement in dynamics I don’t consider desirable. But eventually I remember. ;)
ISTM that it’s a bit rude to lob an accusation of motivated ignorance, then decline to answer a request for information. Despite your accusation, I am indeed genuinely curious regarding how it is that you think I’ve misstated Silas’s claims, since if I actually have, it is due to misunderstanding them—and resolving that misunderstanding would be helpful in wrapping up the thread.
Poor performance doesn’t imply bad motives (and dually).
I add:
The thing Silas means.
The thing PJ tells Silas he means.
I claim:
The scope of things that PUAs actually mean is large. There is (necessarily) a lot of depth to the field.
The nuances of what is actually effective is large. There are many dynamics at play. Many actions that give results for many different reasons.
The scope of pjeby’s model is far smaller and far more idealized than that of either all PUAs or reality.
In the context under contention Silas referred to advice that PUAs actually mean that is not fully represented by pjeby’s idealized model.
What Silas is trying to tell PJ is that he doesn’t wish to confine his expression to the set of expressions in pjeby offers, because he is referring to PUA advice and or elements of reality that pjeby’s model neglects.
Getting to any real disagreement on the immediate topic would require pjeby to acknowledge the actual claim made by Silas.
If I were Silas I would not hold my breath.
If you don’t know the desired end result, how can you possibly modulate your “giving orders” in a way that will produce that result, vs. another way that will produce the result of “creepy”, “bossy”, “socially inept”, etc.? Merely saying to “give orders” without any indication of what you’re trying to accomplish doesn’t strike me as particularly informative.
If someone had told me to “give orders” without the other context, there is no way I could possibly have gotten it right—which is why I’m saying it’s imprecise, and missing important information. For me, it is.
In other words, her point of view isn’t relevant—it’s a power relationship.
Power, yes. Her point of view not being relevant? I don’t know, I guess it depends on how you treat your sister.
Remember, the claim of PUAs (who advocate such techniques; not all do) is that a large enough percentage of women responds well to such treatment and enjoy it. You may well be skeptical of that claim. I am skeptical that the percentage is as high as some PUAs make it sound.
If you disagree with the tactic, I suggest that you follow it down to the root and look at the premises, and what reasons PUAs have to believe that women are reasonably likely to enjoy this kind of treatment. If the woman’s sexual preference is to be treated that way, then it’s not treating her point of view as not “revelant,” it the opposite: the PUA is taking into account the woman’s point of view by giving her what she enjoys. Whenever we look at weird and wacky PUA tactics, we really need to be thinking about what responses PUAs have got from women that make them think (correctly or incorrectly) that such behavior is viable and reasonable. We cannot assume that such behavior is primarily driven by their own preferences, or that it merely a jerk-like imposition on the part of PUAs.
The fact that PUAs advocate a certain behavior as attractive to women is sufficient to locate the hypothesis that they might actually be correct, and we should consider that hypothesis along with the hypothesis that PUAs are biased, or that such behavior is an imposition of their own preferences rather than women’s.
I have my own objections to the “bratty little sister” frame, primarily because I want to be dating someone who is an equal. A little teasing is always great, but if I wouldn’t want an interaction with a woman where I persistently felt that my role was too close to the role of a big brother, while her role was too close to that of a bratty little sister. Moreover, I think that many men have this same preference, and so would be best served by forms of seduction that promote equality.
Note that my objection is from my own preferences (and the preferences that I think more people should hold); I think the effectiveness and ethics of such behavior is less clear-cut.
You say “power relationship” like it’s a bad thing. My own preference may be similar to yours in that I dislike persistent and overarching power dynamics in my relationships (and I think that a lot of power dynamics are actively harmful), but lots of people, male and female, really do like relationships with gendered power dynamics, and seem to do just fine in them. As long as these relationships are chosen freely, I don’t have a sufficient basis to say that there is something wrong with the preferences of those people, or with satisfying those preferences.
Tentatively offered, but it’s possible that if PUAs framed their recommended behavior in terms of “some women” or “many women” rather than implying that what they’re doing works well with all women, there’d be a lot less social friction.
This may or may not be something you want, but part of this conversation is why there are so few women at LW.
I would also like to see more rigor in describing the responses of different subsets of women. When PUAs talk among themselves, qualifiers do get to be a drag, even if a PUA has more complex views. I think more rigor would be worth it, and I find the tendency of PUAs to use language with negative implications annoying and socially unintelligent (“social intelligence” is a buzzword in the community).
In this regard, I found your comments elsewhere in the thread quite helpful to my understanding:
and
Similarly, I would suspect that a significant number of the women who post or consider posting here may also be closer in many ways to the 130 IQ thing-oriented male introverts. And not only would these women find objectionable some of the statements by some PUAs (of the sort you highlighted in the quoted paragraph, or even somewhat less extreme examples), but they would find this portion of some PUA terminology/attitudes particularly off-putting in that its portrayal of women appears to not line up at all with many of the traits of these Lesswrong-type women. Indeed a lot of what I have read does not appear to even acknowledge that women of other types exist. To the extent this lack of qualifiers has been imported into the limited discussion of PUA techniques on LW (which I think it has to at least some extent), then this may be part of why the discussion has met with resistance and offense.
Thanks, I’m glad you found my comments useful.
Exactly. We are seeing two relevant categories of women that I will give the following labels to:
“Atypical women.” This category of women has a combination of the following traits: gender-nonconforming, thing-oriented, introverted, non-neurotypical. Highly intelligent people of both genders also tend to be gender-atypical. Women likely to be interested in posting on LW are likely to fall into this category. Feminists, queer women, polyamorous women, kinky women, artists, and nerds also tend to fall into this category. (Feel free to ask why I would group any of those categories of women together.)
“Typical women.” This category of women is more gender-typical and people-oriented.
This division is inspired by Gangestad et al.’s finding that people fit into two taxa: a majority taxon of gender typical people (85%+ of people), and a minority taxon of gender of atypical people (queer people were mostly in this taxon). If anyone is bothered by terms like “atypical women” or “typical women,” bring it up and we’ll talk about the stats.
I would categorize the relationship of these two taxa of females as follows:
The model PUAs have of women in the gender-atypical minority taxon sucks.
The model that many women in the gender-atypical taxon have of other women in the gender-typical taxon, also sucks.
As a result, PUAs and women in the minority taxon often miss each other like ships in the dark, and have fundamentally different experiences in heterosexual interaction, even they have a lot of psychological similarities.
Yet I’ve actually met plenty of women who would fall into the minority gender-atypical taxon who do understand typical women, experience difficulties interacting with them, and are sympathetic to male difficulties interacting with these women. A female friend of my mine in college insists that “women are evil.” Another female friend (highly introverted and thing-oriented) once told me that she doesn’t like most women and can’t relate to them; she considers them annoying and full of drama.
I think that controversy about pickup would diminish if PUAs promoted a better model of atypical women, and in turn, atypical women had a better model of the more typical types of women that PUAs encounter most often and base most of their theories on. Women in the minority taxon have a valid complaint that PUAs do not correctly categorize their preferences and persistently overgeneralize. Not only is this bad communication on the part of PUAs and a marginalization of the perspective of these women, it is also PUAs shooting themselves in the foot by failing to understand a group of women that potentially contains compatible long-term mates for them.
PUAs also have a valid complaint that many women in the minority taxon who criticize pickup simply don’t understand what men are dealing with when interacting with gender-typical women. These women are engaging in the “typical mind fallacy,” which marginalizes the perspectives of PUAs on their interactions with most women. It also marginalizes the perspectives of gender-typical women, particularly extraverts, who are less motivated to engage in this sort of discussion on the internet. Ironically, women with majority preferences are probably the least likely to engage in arguments about female preferences on the internet, while women with minority preferences are probably most likely to be interested in such discussions.
When I posted more on PUA forum years ago, I argued for better models of different female personalities, with mixed success. I have a lot more field experience and research now, I am pretty much the only person who has put it all together.
While most PUAs are going out to clubs and meeting women they often have trouble relating to, I almost exclusively date women who would fall into the gender atypical taxon (since I do, too). While intellectually I would like to see PUAs expand their models, it is nice that I experience very little competition in my niche.
Thank you for working this out..
You may have no idea how crazy-making it is to keep hearing “we mean well to women” when the version of women described bears no resemblance to oneself. Note that atypical women have a long history (somewhat weakened by feminism) of being told that they should be typical women. And when I say long history, I don’t just mean previous generations, some of it’s still in play. And, while that post about PUAs as trauma survivors straightens out a lot about what’s going on, it seems as though PUA is a bunch of tools for becoming more like typical men which simply make the PUA students’ lives better, being more like typical women has a lot of features which atypical women feel strongly would make their lives worse.
I’m not sure that “thing-oriented” quite covers the range of atypical women. I expect that I’d count as atypical, and I’m more word-oriented. “Not primarily people-oriented” might cover the ground better.
I think that this depends a lot on what you mean by “model”. If you mean their calibration of what specific behaviors (e.g. yelling, being silly, very aggressive, etc.), then yes, I’d agree—it’s calibrated for “club girls” and nightclub environments.
But my observation is that the atyipcal women (whom I’ve pretty much exclusively dated) still respond to what the PUA’s would call dominance traits—just not the same signifiers for those traits. The main difference is that atypicals prefer you to show dominance over things other than them. (Except maybe in the bedroom, given explicit discussion and consent.)
For example, having a purpose and sense of direction in life, knowing what you want, being decisive, etc. are still a factor in atypicals’ attraction algorithm. Intellectual dominance, in the sense of being articulate, knowledgeable, insightful, etc. Not having these qualities tends to get you filtered out.
Atypicals don’t engage in status testing by being jerks (well, maybe some occasional sarcasm); they do it mainly by seeing if you can keep up with them intellectually—can you match them, pun for pun, double entendre for double entendre? Do you get their obscure references?
This is still status testing/flirting, just different.
(Hm, actually, it’s occurring to me that some atypicals I’ve known still had the whole orbiter hierarchy thing going on, and tended to end up sleeping with the highest-dominant jerks in their group… just reasonably intelligent jerks. This behavior pattern seems to be more correlated with whether a woman is found attractive by a lot of guys, rather than whether she’s neurotypical per se.)
Are you going to publish, or at least blog, on this subject? As someone who downplays the importance of gender, I would like to see my assumptions flipped on their head.
You could probably make a living off that.
It occurs to me that just as there are “naturals” that appeal more to typical women there are likely “naturals” that appeal more to atypical women. I never thought about it before since one usually measures one’s attractiveness on the majority’s terms but I might actually be a natural of the latter type and not have ever realized it until this moment. Strange.
I hadn’t thought of it in that way either, but I think you may be right.
Most of of my female friends fit this category. I can emphasise with what they are saying, I grew up with sisters, after all, and at times didn’t envy them their ‘friends’. Then nature of peer competition is differentiated somewhat between the sexes and the gender-atypical women I know are poorly suited to it. But being male I actually find I have far less of that sort of trouble, given that I am not often a direct competitor. That and I have the opportunity to use innocent flirtation to release some of the competitive tension without zero-sum conflict.
For that pair I’d be going with the whole ‘being strongly correlated’ thing.
Yup, you are observant. Since poly women have more male-typical sexuality (polyamory, high sociosexuality) and nerdy women have more male-typical interests and psychology, I think I’m justified in locating the hypothesis of an underlying masculinization factor. This masculinization is probably biological (specifically, prenatal… and yes, I do have more research on this). I hypothesize that masculinization or feminization are some of the most important dimensions in personality and interests (which is consistent with mainstream psychology, though a bit non-PC) and I am working on figuring out the practical implications of those dimensions with respect to dating. So far, I’m ahead of the seduction community on this subject.
Your theories and (apparent) research match my own.
As for practical implications of those dimensions, and how they apply to gender atypical people, my understanding is mostly procedural and intuitive abstractions. And my theories are biased towards practical implications for me that, while they look like they could be more generally applicable, may not be. Thinking other people are more similar to ourselves than they are is a typical human failing (right up there next to thinking we’re unique, go figure).
One thing I have noticed is that what is described as ‘masculine and feminine’ sexuality seems to be more than one distinct concept. Some of those ‘polyamorous, nerdy women with male-typical interests and psychology’ execute clearly female instinctive patterns in a masculine way. So a concrete minded person with basic competence from the seduction material would think ‘masculine’, someone with more experience, more curiosity or more IQ may burst out laughing as they see the same patterns play out in an entirely different way. And ya know, while it can be easy to learn the rules which work with the gender-typical stereotype, learning to interact with those with a more distinct psychology is just a whole heap more fun! It’s more ‘real’.
I rather doubt that. It is my impression that there are more female commenters on popular PUA blogs than there are here.
Is that how you treat your bratty little sister?
The dynamic actually being referred to is a loving relationship where neither party takes the other too seriously, and where “big bro” is expected to look out for and protect “little sis”, including at times possibly taking more care for her safety or long-term goals than she is, while not being moved by the occasional pout or tantrum. It’s also a dynamic where “big bro” tries to live up to his sister’s possibly-idealized image of him as the big strong guy looking out for her.
The purpose of the advice is to evoke an area of a man’s life where he may already have an experience of being a leader/protector to a loved female who he didn’t put on a distant pedestal of awe and fear. Not to put down women.
I’m an older sister. My sister wasn’t a brat, and I wasn’t a bully. I did take a little advantage on housework, and I think she’s still angry about it. However, I never tried to break down her self-respect.
How flexible is the “bratty little sister” model for coverinig situations where the sister is right?
What does bullying have to do with it?
I’ve never seen anyone advocate breaking down a woman’s self-respect, so I’m not clear on the relevance here either.
Brothers and sisters can disagree, can they not? Sister isn’t required to agree with brother, nor vice versa.
Think of it this way: right now, you appear to think that the problem is that if the guy pushes one way, then she has to go along with that.
Now, reverse the model: pretend that if she pushes one way, the guy has to go along with that.
That’s the mental model most men (AFC’s or Average Frustrated Chumps in PUA lingo) have about relationships.
By default, “nice guys” think they have to agree with everything a woman says. This is especially the case if the woman is attractive to them, and they really want her to like him.
You might not think this is most men’s model… but that’s because most men don’t approach the women they’re attracted to in the first place! And the ones that do, tend to get written off as unattractive or not relationship material, precisely because they’re too eager to please, doing too much, “well, what do you want to do?”, etc.
PUA appears biased the other way, because it’s trying to train AFCs that they need to actually have an opinion of their own, and be able to maintain that opinion even when a woman they’re positively infatuated with disagrees.
Unfortunately, availability bias on the part of women means that you are going to think men are already too far biased this way, because the majority of the ones who come and hit on you in the first place are towards the further end of the wimpy-nice-confident-aggressive-asshole spectrum. PUA training is aimed at moving people at the low end of that scale towards the middle, not the high end off the scale.
In my view, there isn’t enough explicitly stated material on how to detect when the sister is in the right in PUA materials; some of my own thought processes on this subject is shown here. I do think that many experienced PUAs do figure out better intuition about when the sister is being genuinely bratty, whether she is deliberately testing him or simply displaying her natural personality, or if she has some other motive, such as displaying serious objections or resistance to how the interaction is proceeding that require him to adjust his approach or back off entirely.
This process of adjusting one’s behavior based on the woman’s responses is called “calibration,” and it is hard to teach through explicit description (which is why experienced PUAs often roll their eyes at how beginners go through phases of weird or otherwise undesirable behavior until they learn the correct calibration and how to interpret the teachings of the community). Some experienced PUAs will apologize to women if they judge that they have badly “miscalibrated.”
It’s nice to see that PUAs are working on this angle. It’s cheering to think that paying attention to what you’re doing leads to more benevolent behavior.
And it’s very interesting from an FAI angle that calibration isn’t programmatic. I’ve been trying to work up convincing arguments that an FAI will have to do ongoing attention and updating in order to treat people well.
For anyone who prefers equal relationships (and I’ve seen some happy marriages which look pretty equal), even the experienced PUAs have awful defaults (it takes experience to learn to apologize at all, only some PUAs do it, and it’s only for bad mistakes), and it’s scary to think about the men who haven’t done that much work.
I think one piece of it is a cultural problem (maybe hard-wired, but I hope not) of figuring out how to apologize without it having the effect of grovelling for either person.
Yes, it takes newbie PUAs time to learn to recognize when they have made social errors, and to learn which errors are bad enough that they should apologize for. But in this regard, PUAs are just the same as everyone else. They are just learning these social lessons later in life, while most people learned them through their normal socialization in childhood and adolescence.
Trust me, PUAs don’t want to be going through trial-and-error to learn during adulthood what everyone else learned during puberty, but it’s really not their fault that they have to do this. The typical reasons that they have ended up in this situation is because they got locked out of a normal social development by exclusion, bullying, or abuse by peers or parents during their formative development.
Sociologist Brian Gilmartin did a study of men with debilitating shyness in heterosexual interactions in the late 80′s, and found a high rate of peer and/or family victimization experienced by these men during their formative years. Furthermore, he found a high rate of gender-atypical traits in his sample. “Love-shy” men were disproportionately introverted, prone to anxiety, and non-neurotypical. Gilmartin argues that males with those traits may be capable of a positive social development in the right environment, but that American culture is unfriendly to males with these traits:
p. 46-47 of his book (available as PDF here ):
p. 82:
The social problems described by Gilmartin’s work are on the more extreme end of what many PUAs describe. Yet what it shows is that many PUAs are essentially abuse survivors of various sorts who are currently trying to learn the social skills that they could have learned in adolescence if they hadn’t spent their adolescence being abused, excluded, or isolated due to having non-stereotypically masculine traits or being non-neurotypical.
Does that mean that anything goes in their attempts to “catch up” socially? Of course not. These men should still exercise common sense, and people who are teaching them should encourage it. Yet since the social intuitions of these men are under-developed due their negative developmental experiences, it is inevitable that they will make mistakes. If they played completely safe, they might lower the amount of mistakes they made, but they would miss out on important developmental lessons.
This does make more sense out of PUA. Thank you for posting it.
Where you’re putting the emphasis on the end state, I’m seeing a description of men who are barely capable of apologizing at all. I gather PUA is especially for men who feel they ought to be apologizing all the time.
Part of what’s going on here is group loyalty issues. My defaults are the ill-effects on women of harassment and abuse, and yours are men who got pushed to the bottom of the hierarchy. From my point of view, you see women as just the material for you guys to learn on.
You mention that the quotes from the article are the extreme end of what PUAs at the extreme end of what PUAs have experienced. Would you care to give me some idea of the range?
One piece is something which I probably need to work on. It’s very tempting for me to see a creepy guy as really creepy all the way down, so that what seems like more attractive behavior is just a ploy.
I’m willing to bet that PUA generally can’t be framed as trauma recovery because you believe (perhaps rightly) that a man can’t do well socially while admitting to that sort of damage.
I’m wondering if “normal” people need to do this much damage for the sake of their own functioning. Cruelty seems to be strongly reinforcing for a significant proportion of people.
I came at it from fat acceptance, but it was rather a shock to realize that my native culture is meaner than hell.
Yes, exactly. This is probably the bit that causes the most problems—women think PUA advocates that all the jerky guys who already bother them become even jerkier, when it’s actually about getting nice guys to stop being apologetic for even existing within the perceptual range of a female.
Right—men are shamed for not being able to deal with it, in the same way that you were shamed for being angry.
That being said, PUA is framed as recovery, to a certain extent, but with a more positive spin—“it’s not about getting women, it’s about becoming better men” is a common saying among people who’ve spent a nontrivial amount of time interacting with their PUA peers, or who’re involved in doing training.
If you look at what PUA training products are for sale in the marketplace, and how they’re priced, you’ll notice that the difference between cheap training and expensive training is mostly about the difference between cheap tricks, and becoming a more confident, expressive, person. (On the in-between pricing levels, there’s training about style, logistics, approaches, etc.)
This isn’t accidental—it reflects the normal path of guys’ interest. The further along someone gets in their education, the more interested they are in changing who they are, rather than in just learning some magical pickup lines, or ways to dress and stand so as not to look creepy.
If you think that PUAs are creepy guys who just want to manipulate women and get laid, consider the fact that they’re willing to pay $200 just to learn to appreciate women better!
Heck, just read the first bullet point from that sales page:
Does that sound like something that would even remotely appeal to the stereotype you have in mind of what a “PUA” is?
Sure, I’m cherrypicking an example—AMP are the only people I know of who position their marketing that clearly. Most of the sales literature for similar training is shrouded in more mystery, or in language that makes things sound a lot more like you’re going to become this awesome stud, until you look at the actual program synopsis or read reviews
But AMP is far from the only company training “inner”, “natural”, and “direct” game styles (all of which emphasize personal transformation, and open/honest communication). And some of those other companies are making millions. Annually.
Which means it’s not really the narrow niche you think it is. Availability bias and controversy creates distorted views.
That wasn’t the goal post that Silas was aiming for.
Look, I was trying to take Silas’ belligerent meta level attack, and extract from it a object level argument for his position. It was not unreasonable for me to expect him to back up the supporting claim I identified before accepting it though. Then you claimed that this claim can be justified as common knowledge, and that was what I was arguing against in my previous comment.
I really am open to evidence on this. But I am frustrated by the unreasonable meta level attacks on motivations.
And I’m frustrated by your refusal to assimilate the lessons of You are entitled to evidence, but not that particular proof. Of course there won’t be perfect, side-by-side examples we can compare, but we have to update on what we see, imperfect, or not. Before we get into a game of “why I get to ignore that evidence”, I need to establish what kinds of things would count as evidence, even if they aren’t ideal comparisons.
I asked to you to extrapolate out from the example I did give and ask what the reaction would be if EY’s story extended to discussion of equally “useful”, thorough techniques the male and female did to enhance attraction. As best I can tell, you dodged having to consider the logical implications of the hypothetical and instead preferred a test stacked in your favor, which assumes what you’re trying to prove.
If you’re frustrated, perhaps you can understand why I’m frustrated, and why I start positing theories for “what’s really going on here”, which you take offense at, but which are then vindicated when you bring up irrelevant comparisons as if they were part and parcel of the issue I was arguing about.
ETA: I have not been belligerent; I want to know if there’s a broader issue we need to be discussing. Right or wrong, I have good reason to believe so. If I were trying to “explain” your arguments by reference to your mental health, that would be belligerent and offensive. But I would never dream of offering such an explanation. There’s nothing offensive about suggesting there’s a broader underlying issue; rather, it’s often the key insight to resolving a dispute.
That is a really weird response to my attempt to extract from your post a different sort of evidence than what I had been asking for.
I am willing to to consider arguments that the comparisons are reasonable. I have explained that I am willing to consider such evidence.
I do note, however, that the side by side examples of both sorts of discussion in the same tone and style, both provoked no offense.
I don’t update on hypothetical evidence. This is essentially asking me to assume the thing you are trying to support. My extrapolation is that they both become offensive at the same point. I don’t think that point is even including useful information. It is advocating the use of that information to manipulate people to do things they would not endorse if they understood what was going on. I don’t like making these predictions though because I don’t have much evidence to go on.
Bringing it up the first time is an understandable mistake. You continued to push it after I informed you that your theory of me was wrong.
Though the thing I called belligerent was you accusing me of not updating on a point that you had not brought up. Don’t you think it would be better to just present that point as one of the reasons for your suspicion? Would you like to put the meta level argument behind us and discuss it on the object level? I am willing to treat the larger world as reference class that has implications for Less Wrong. I don’t accept the claim as common knowledge though, so you will have substantiate it by, for example, pointing to people’s actual observed behavior.
The evidence PJEby provides here seems to support symmetry in reactions to the two sorts of discussion.
Great! Because I wasn’t asking you to do such a thing. I was looking for a point of common agreement from which I could ground further arguments. (That’s a normal way to resolve disagreements.)
You’re kidding—you’re upset that I wouldn’t take your self-serving statements at face value? All evidence shows I was exactly right. Like I explained to you once already, you presented this argument as contradicting my position, when in fact it contradicts a different one that I wasn’t arguing for (and don’t hold a contrary position on). This establishes that you see the issues as being related by a common factor … exactly what I expected the whole time, and exactly the factor we should have been directing our attention toward early on.
Well, just like you can’t update on hypothetical evidence, you can’t claim your position is based on arguments you weren’t even aware of until later. If you actually had such evidence in mind, you had numerous opportunities to present it, but you decided that you were “just curious why you should even be considering my position”. It’s a little late to claim that pjeby’s points were motivating your objections, don’t you think?
Silas, you’re spending too much time talking about JGWeissman here. In his last post he offered to drop all meta points in this discussion and focus on object-level reality. If you think you’re right about the issues accept his offer and move the discussion there.
This particular post is moving into sarcastic flamewar territory.
Wow, there is some serious miscommunication going on here. Maybe because I’m not using the keywords? Let’s give that a try:
I agree that we should switch to the object level. But which object level? This discussion started on the object level issue of:
1) What is Silas’s basis for suspecting (i.e. having a slightly tilted prior) that, between beauty-to-men and PUA-to-female biases, the latter will be more often unjustifiably hindered?
JGW showed a strange obsession with getting a lot of evidence from me to justify this suspicion. I inferred therefore that it’s just one facet of a broader, important issue on which the larger community should be having a discussion. Despite his firm (but self-serving) denial, he eventually revealed what issue he had in mind:
2) Which gender, if any, is more manipulated/ manipulating/ repressed, and in what way?
During the course of all of this, another object-level discussion arose, similar to 1):
3) Can men get the same quality of advice for making themselves attractive to women that women do for men?
So which object-level discussion do you want?
1) is a minor, unimportant issue (one person’s slightly tilted prior, in whch he wants to be proven wrong by future discussions? come on!)
2) is an issue I have no particular interest in at the moment.
3) is already having a robust discussion, in which I’m engaged.
So, what specifically should I be doing differently?
ETA: Okay, you folks will need to be a little more specific than a downmod; such an answer is somewhat vague here.
I have updated my position, from suspecting symmetry as the default case, to having moderate strength belief that the symmetry holds, mostly as a result of Eby’s description of the symmetry which is much better than I could have done at the start of this discussion. I am more interested in figuring out if there is a symmetry, and what its nature is, than in arguing whether I was right from the beginning. If I always find that I am right from the beginning, I am probably not correctly evaluating whether I was right.
I brought that up as object level evidence of my position, not as evidence that my initial position was justified by my subjective state at the time. Because I really am serious about my offer to put behind us all the meta level issues, and focus on the object level. The offer still stands. Or, if you like, you can say you don’t care if such an asymmetry exists, and we can drop the whole thing.
Sounds good. Please refer to the arguments I’ve presented in my exchange with pjeby, which are here and in the surrounding discussion.
(Note how I’m not hounding you to give me 100:1-likelihood-ratio evidence to justify your initial suspicion of symmetry. Cause that would just be wrong, you know?)
Actually, the function of a neg is not to induce insecurity, but to disarm. Mystery’s original goal was to create a method of seducing what he calls “exceptionally beautiful women”, who are often surrounded by hordes of supplicant males flattering their beauty.
The function of the neg in this context was to show that Mystery was not applying for membership in the woman’s puppy dog pack, and thereby signaling a higher status than those other males, as well as indicating that she would need more than her physical attractiveness in order to interest him.
It also served an additional purpose of preventing both the “target” and her friends (male or female) from being initially aware of his interest in her, to keep them from engaging in whatever stereotyped defensive behaviors they might have for discouraging people from hitting on her.
The actual effect of a neg may include insecurity, but the intended effect is to make the PUA appear “hard to get”, and therefore more attractive… even if only as a challenge to the woman’s “game”. Mystery’s “jealousy plots” are a similar class of maneuver.
In any case, outside the context of “exceptionally beautiful woman” (who knows she’s desirable) with a pack of friends and/or “orbiters”, the use of actual “negs” are counterindicated. David DeAngelo’s “cocky funny”, or RSD’s “self-amusement” concepts are more generally applicable in such cases, and a neg is really just an intensified version of the playful teasing of those other methods, for a specific field of application.
[By the way, this is not an endorsement of any of these methods by me, just an attempt to correct a (common) misunderstanding about negs. If you’ve watched Mystery’s TV show, you might be aware that some aspiring PUAs are also under the impression that a neg is an insult to lower self-esteem… and you may have also seen just how horribly wrong things actually go when you try to use it that way. ;-) ]
My point is only that the neg is an example of bottom-lining. First you decide that you will convince her of something that will have certain effects on her. Then you decide on the evidence that you will highlight to convince her of this.
I’m confused. ISTM that Mystery’s primary intention (as stated very frequently by him) is to convey the message, “I am not like other men”. Everything about his behavior and appearance is tailored to communicate that message, and as a result, it is true. He is not like other men, in his appearance and behavior, unless they are imitating him.
Also, you said here that:
Mystery’s “song” is (accurately) portraying himself as a quirky nonconformist who requires more than beauty to impress him.
The real flaw in Mystery’s method is not that the behavior itself is wrong, but that his systematic disassembly and reassembly of large- and small-scale behavior patterns is not a good teaching method for getting people to be attractive, because the act of transmission via breaking down and reassembling inevitably communicates and reinforces various wrong things.
In effect, the breakdown mechanicalizes people and reduces authenticity until someone develops enough confidence of their own—fake it till you make it, so to speak. The problem is that then some people never get past faking it, and the actual faking may be questionable.
In essence, Mystery asked, “what behaviors do I need to perform to attract women?”, and used this same question to inform his training of others.
But the people who are these days rebuilding Mystery’s training methods, have been asking a different, and much better question: “how do I become the kind of person who naturally exhibits the kind of behaviors that (the kind of ) women (I’d be interested in) find attractive?”
Modern methods emphasize identifying the mental and physical characteristics of your ideal mate (“your true 10” in DYD-speak, or your “blueprint woman” in RSD-speak), as a prelude to identifying what sort of man to become… which is more analagous to finding out what kind of music someone likes, so you can play it for them.
Mystery’s real problem, however, was not that he didn’t identify the target audience for his “music”, or that he didn’t try to play the kind of “music” he observed that audience responding to. It’s that he was operating from an assumption that he wasn’t good enough in himself, and that therefore he needed to mimic attractive behaviors, rather than simply becoming attractive himself. To resume your music analogy, it’s as though he believed he needed to lipsync the music of others, rather than to learn to actually “sing” himself.
The larger PUA community, I think (or at least the thought leaders), have come to the conclusion that, despite Mystery’s immense contributions to the analysis and understanding of the social dynamics of meeting and relating to people in nightclubs, this assumption of inferior status and value as a starting point to interaction (because initially, Mystery’s situation was one of needing to lift himself from an inferior status), was a serious mistake that drove the community in bad directions and reinforced the insecurity and immaturity of many, rather than helping them to face and overcome those issues.
Your post is consistent with my understanding, also.
Furthermore, Mystery’s model of women is biased towards the modal female extravert. Since he based most of his understanding of women on his club interactions, he was vulnerable to the availability heuristic. (Look! We are talking about rationality and pickup!)
It is indeed important to understand the modal/median/average women, but unless you actually want to date the type of woman, you need to understand other types of women, also. Yet the view of women in the community seems a bit over-homogenized towards the types of women that PUAs encounter most often.
Furthermore, I think part of the reason that some PUAs sound cynical or patronizing when they talk about women is that PUAs are not the average male. They are probably higher than average in intelligence and introversion, yet they are comparing female extraverts of average intelligence to themselves and finding them lacking; this is an unfair comparison.
Are the women they’re attracted to of average intelligence? I can see arguments pointing in four directions. The 9s and 10s are of average intelligence—it’s the null hypothesis. They’re smarter than average—if appearing maximally attractive takes some skill (and it does), then g should help. They’re less intelligent than average—they’ve been coasting on their looks. They’re of average or above average intelligence, but choose to appear less intelligent so as not to put men off.
Hey, I resent the implication that all PUAs are attracted to the same kind of women. ;-) (j/k—I resent nothing.)
However, PUA tastes in women are not all alike, at least if you look at their gurus as an indicator. My estimate is that David D seems to go for stability, intelligence, and class, Juggler values interesting and emotional conversation, Soporno seeks fun, sensuality, and maturity/depth. (My personal estimates based solely on information from their publicly available materials.)
Of course, there’s a lot of other gurus who only brag about their ability to pick up “hot” women, or in Mystery’s case, “women of exceptional beauty”, and for them, intelligence doesn’t seem to be something they care about one way or the other.
I suspect this has more to do with these men seeking Status from their ability to “get” these women, rather than seeking the Affiliation and Stimulation of the women’s company. (As is more clearly the case with some of the other gurus I mentioned.)
Modal?
Oh, I guess you mean “typical”, as opposed to atypical. I thought maybe it was a typo for “model”, since Mystery’s aim was reported to include models, bartenders, strippers, hostesses and other “women hired for their beauty”.
Which kind of underscores your point in an odd way—his observations were NOT based on “average” women at all, but on neurotypical extroverts of above-average appearance.
“Modal,” as in “pertaining to the mode.”
Yes, my broader point is that a lot of the observations of PUAs are based on the women they meet the most often. The type of women they meet the most often is club-goers of above average attractiveness. The average intelligence of these women is likely to be around the population average, they are probably above average in extraversion, and they have highly “people-oriented” interests (and they may well be above average in neuroticism and below average in conscientiousness).
These female phenotypes may be common, but there are plenty of other female phenotypes that are less well understand by PUAs. Furthermore, the phenotypes of female club-goers are massively, massively different from the phenotypes of PUAs, who are probably 1-2 standard deviations above the mean in intelligence, above average in introversion, and “thing-oriented” rather than “people-oriented” in their interests (many PUAs might not even be completely neurotypical).
So when we see PUAs holding cynical attitudes towards women, such as “chick crack,” or talking about women as children or pets (these last attitudes are rare, but not unheard of), we should consider that they are unfairly comparing average women to themselves. When PUAs talk about women like they are a different species, perhaps it is because average-intelligence people-oriented female extraverts do seem like a different species from 130 IQ thing-oriented male introverts.
If PUAs were to be interacting with women more psychometrically similar, perhaps they wouldn’t experience the feelings of alienation from women that so many currently do, and which women find off-putting in their speech. Furthermore, my experience is that once I started interacting with women who weren’t 1-2 standard deviations different from me on most major psychometric traits, a lot of the “problems” I was having interacting with women (e.g. not being sufficiently extraverted and dominant) suddenly vanished.
Yet I am reluctant to blame PUAs for not going after women who are like them. First, these women are harder to find, since they are introverts and less likely to go to clubs. Second, I have good reasons to believe that there are simply less nerdy women than nerdy men, for any reasonable operationalization of “nerdy.” There is not a nerdy girl for every nerdy guy.
I find it perfectly understandable that PUAs are basing their models of women on the women that it is easiest for them to find, but I do wish there was a bit more emphasis on building a model of the type of woman that you want and figuring out where to find her. Day game is certainly progress in that direction, and I’ve also had some good results with online dating.
I’d be interested to hear them. I’m aware of the stereotype but not any evidence (other than perhaps dubious IQ data).
Other than that, your comment matches my impressions. I have in the past seen nerdy friends of mine go to bars “to meet women”, and had to ask, “Why would you do that? You’ll just meet women who like going to bars!”
Also, I’ve found that most people seem stupid, so I imagine if I were the sort of person who specifically aimed to meet lots of women, I’d likewise form the impression that most women are stupid. It seems like an easy mistake of generalization for someone with nerdy male friends and average female acquaintances to think “women are stupid”; there but for the grace of FSM go I.
Does nerdy = intelligent? Or (as I suspect) is nerdiness the only kind of intelligence of interest to most nerds?
Both.
On reflection, I’m not sure “women who are easy to find” is a such a good excuse. They haven’t seen intelligent women in their families or classes?
I realize it’s hard to notice things that you aren’t in the habit of noticing, and I make a serious effort not to insult people for ignorance—if you don’t know something, you don’t know it. Still, I wish these guys could notice that “women are stupid” is an idea which is likely to be self-reinforcing.
And it’s harder to pay attention to other factors when you’re in an environment which includes a lot of supernormal stimuli.
I take your last point in a somewhat different direction—if you don’t know what you want, but you’re trying to build yourself a good life, you’ll be over-influenced by status considerations.
And then you decide that your precautions against causing harm must be good enough.
I have no desire to minimize the use or effectiveness of techniques women use to enhance their beauty. Or were you not considering that a ‘Dark Side’ method?
I think the ‘Dark Side’ sometimes gets an overly bad rap around here. I wish to understand the techniques so I can avoid being manipulated into doing things that are against my broader interests and I would prefer to see less use of dubious techniques for persuasion in discussions that are supposed to be truth-seeking but I wouldn’t want to see all ‘manipulative’ techniques disappear completely. Sometimes I enjoy being emotionally ‘manipulated’, whether by art (movies, music, paintings, literature) or by deliberate suspension of disbelief in personal interactions. Being a rationalist should not require turning oneself and the world into the ‘Spock’ stereotype.
Not all PUA techniques are examples of Dark Side Epistemology, nor are all beauty-enhancing techniques. Some, however, are.
Could you elaborate on what you consider the dividing line to be? Is it merely the awareness of the target of the techniques being employed? I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that as a dividing line: I enjoy music and the effect it has on my emotions despite not being sufficiently knowledgeable about music to understand the mechanics of how to achieve a particular emotional effect. I am aware such techniques exist but I don’t know the details. Similarly with female beauty enhancement. I’m more aware of the techniques film makers use to manipulate emotions because I have spent quite a lot of time learning about them but when enjoying a film in the moment I do not wish to consciously focus on them.
I think that the best heuristic is to look for bottom-lining. Have you decided on what you want to convince her of before you have determined what evidence you will selectively show her to bring her to that conclusion? If so, you might be practicing dark side epistemology.
I don’t think that the case with music is the same in general. First, merely convincing you to like something is different from convincing you that something is true. Merely convincing you to think that I’m attractive is one thing. Inducing you to do so by convincing you that there’s something strange about how your hair looks is another.
Second, suppose that I want you to buy my songs. if I want to convince you that my music is good, then the honest way to do so is to figure out what you like in music, and then to make music with those qualities. But note that there’s no bottom-lining here. When you get the song, you will ideally listen to it first, and then draw the conclusion that it’s good.
This is an interesting argument, but I don’t think that you can hold the same standards of epistemic rationality to matters of social perception. To a large extent, coolness, social status, and attractiveness are subjective qualities that depend on the perception of others. The Earth will not become flatter because you persuade a lot of people that it is flat, but if you can persuade a lot of people that you are cool, then you probably really are cool (general “you,” of course).
There is nothing wrong with deciding in advance what “bottom line” conclusion you want people to hold about you (e.g. that you are cool, high status, or attractive), because if you successfully behave in way that influences people to have that perception, then it often magically becomes true, making your original behavior legitimate. Even if you are a shy person adopting that behavior for the first time. At least, it is true in the context of interaction with those people. And if you fail to give them that perception (“this guy isn’t as cool as he thinks he is”), then no harm is done because they see through you.
There is nothing “dark side” about trying to act as cool, high status, or attractive as possible, and trying to push the limits (as long as this behavior isn’t based on lying or deception). People will either accept you as having those attributes, or they won’t. (The only ethical exception is in cases of actual lying or deception, such as about one’s job, age, finances, history, social position, etc… In this case, it does become meaningful to say that someone’s social perception of you can be based on false pretenses.)
The “truth” about your “real” status and attractiveness is not something that you yourself can decide in advance; at best, you only have a confidence interval. Since you don’t know where your “real” status and attractiveness lie, then you shouldn’t worry so much about deceiving people about it. Instead of trying to decide your status in advance and “protect” people from having an inflated perception of it, you should try to figure out your status by interacting with people and seeing what behavior others accept from you and respond well to (in more cynical terms, “see what you can get away with”). Other people are perfectly capable of protecting themselves from you acting too big for your britches.
People will tell you, explicitly or implicitly, how cool and attractive you are; there is no need for you to try to decide for them. I will hypothesize that this is how most normal people conduct social interaction, and there is nothing wrong with nerdy people knowingly replicating the same behavior even if it isn’t intuitive to them.
Social perception: the only place in the universe where perception actually is reality (at least, to a large degree).
While that sounds nice in theory, it’s not realistic. In all human interaction people try to present their best attributes first. This is normal and generally harmless. In fact, most people would find it quite odd if when someone introduced themselves they instantly revealed their major self-perceived flaws. If you continue to withhold important information that you know is likely to be perceived negatively by another person over a long period then you start to cross a line that most people would consider unreasonable but I think you need to offer a more restrictive definition of what is considered the ‘dark side’ unless you want to rule out most normal human interaction.
It seems that ‘dark side’ gets used in two somewhat different ways here. What Eliezer describes in Dark Side Epistemology seems a narrower definition than is sometimes employed by others. I haven’t seen a clear definition of this broader meaning but it appears to include techniques that are calculated to produce a particular effect in the audience and incorporates the kinds of ‘tricks’ that artists use to make their works emotionally resonant and powerful.
Dark Side Epistemology is something you do to yourself; the Dark Arts are methods you use on other people (or they use ’em on you). Unfortunately, the names are similar enough and human memory is buggy enough that it’s a name collision for most people.
That’s why it was renamed anti-epistemology.
Alas, the damage is done. Too bad we can’t just update a DNS server-equivalent and have the change propagate to everybody’s brains.
Indeed, though I wonder why the older posts on it weren’t updated (or at least had notes on the naming added to them).
Agreed that pickup is largely off-topic, but:
I feel compelled here to point out (even though you didn’t explicitly say otherwise, and I don’t mean to imply that you believe otherwise) that rationalists should win, which includes using (or encouraging, teaching, etc.) methods of anti-rational persuasion when doing so wins. I do agree that LW shouldn’t much discuss such things with an eye to using them.
Less importantly:
It doesn’t seem to me that PUA techniques are closely analogous to dark-side epistemology or bottom-line arguments; those things aim at influencing verbal beliefs (or beliefs-in-belief), while I would think that pickup largely aims at influencing emotions, aliefs, and cesires — System 1 stuff. (Your example is certainly much more an emotion/alief than a belief.)
I can’t say that I’ve ever seen women make as general claims for benevolence and good general effects for dressing up as I’ve seen made for PUA.
Afaik, woman either say they have fun doing it, and follow up with what’s wrong with that?, or they say they’re pushed into it because men want it. They don’t say they’re making men better off even if men say they don’t like it.
Also, (and this may be more interesting than the above), being resentful about women dressing up isn’t a mainstream modern point of view. It’s common in a number of religions and also showed up in communist China.
So they’re better at shielding themselves from awareness of its effect on men’s psyches? What difference does that make? A lot of naturals do exactly what PUAs do; it’s just that non-naturals don’t naturally do it, and have to be explained the reason why it works. A woman who just “feels like” making herself beautiful, as a good in and of itself, is therefore much like a natural male PUA: she instinctively does something that works, without understanding the broader context of why it works. (Level 1 in my hierarchy.)
Being resentful about being in the presence of overpoweringly attractive females that a male does not know how to appeal to is actually quite common. Perhaps it’s not widely discussed in these terms, but I guarantee it’s present in the legions who seek the advice of PUAs.
There are some PUA techniques, at least, which only work on people who are not aware of them. There’s this funny passage in The Game which discusses how one group of guys is preemptively spoling another group’s pick-up lines at a party, and later on something along the same lines happens to the protagonist (it would be spoilerish to give any more detail).
By contrast I doubt that advertising agencies would suffer much if their techniques were exposed; the reason Avatar was so successful, I surmise, is simply that they saturated the public’s awareness with it, which only required a large cash outlay.
“Techniques which only work against you because you’re not aware of them” is one of the reasons for the PUA’s bad rap, I suspect. (There are others, such as insincerity, but that’ll have to be for another time.)
This sounds intuitively like a good heuristic, but the underlying logic isn’t obvious to me. Can you expand?
Assume that when someone finds out about a technique, they judge whether they think it ought to work on them or not, and adjust their behavior accordingly. If a technique doesn’t work when the subject is aware of it, that usually means that they would decide, for some reason, that they don’t want it to work. So if a technique works only when the subject is unaware of it, then using that technique is going against their preferences.
Pretty much. I like to contrast this with the techniques I use in sales meetings to guide the sale toward closing, which I not only don’t mind if my clients find out about them, I’m usually happy to feature them if the occasion arises.
“Sales techniques” is something that seems cringeworthy to many people—I’ve had more than one person confirm that. One of the happiest find in my careers as a freelance was this set of non-manipulative sales techniques.
Solution selling in particular was a watershed in turning me from an engineer into a (pretty successful) salesman while getting rid of any qualms I might have had about the transition. It helps a lot that what I’m selling is my own services and I happen to know what I’m good at; but that’s the point of solution selling.
FWIW, it’s the increasing frequency of such events occurring that has forced the evolution of “natural” methods, which aren’t vulnerable to such revelations. (Since they attempt mainly to modify the male’s personality and expressiveness, rather than teaching him ways to manipulate.)
I hate advertising with a passion and would avoid it, and all other sales techniques, if given the option. I also avoid locations and situations where PUA could be prevalent, but I think that might be a different matter.
One interesting data point would be the number of people who have had a sexual fantasy with non-consensual, mind control, or D/s themes, specifically with a desire to be the sub or victim. There are plenty of communities centered around these topics outside of PUA.
“My opinion is that LW shouldn’t be for PUA/beauty tips or how-to’s. But it would be appropriate to discuss why these methods work, under what conditions you’d want to resist them, and what countermeasures you can take. (And I suspect some don’t even want it to go this far, or want to restrict PUA more than beauty.)”
To clarify, I was promoting discussing PUA under this context, not FROM THE LENS of a working PUA. Certainly Pickup Artistry should never be actively encouraged on this site—there are way too many sites that handle this better than this one. But to discuss PUA from an observer’s lens—discuss its merits and its pitfalls—I don’t see why this type of discussion would drive individuals away unless the majority of the discussion turned into nonsense.
I think discussing PUA is going to attract a lot of individuals, and the right kind of individual. As long as the community continues to discuss this highly controversial topic in a rationalist manner, then other would-be rationalists are going to be find that unique and hopefully interesting. It’s when controversial topics are viewed in a rationalist light that you truly shine a beacon declaring, “We are mindful. Not mindless.”
If the discussion truly devolves then it should be a banned topic.
Well, whether it’s been researched or not, it’s certainly being sold:
On a side note… I actually was at a conference where the guy who writes the sales material for the above products discussed the psychology of their advertising methods for using women’s fears of “dying alone” to drive sales, as an example for how to identify and exploit irrational fears in general.
So yes, advertising is definitely researched at least as much as PUA, especially by PUAs-turned advertisers. (“Christian Carter/Catch Him And Keep Him” is a brand owned by the same company that owns “David DeAngelo/Double Your Dating”—both are character/stage names, like “Sara Lee” or “Ronald McDonald”. And the names are alliterative for reasons that were also discussed at that conference...)
I think the key question is the difference between visitors and regulars—we’d like more people to be active, not just show up. Does controversy actually bring in all that many people who stay?
P.S. Welcome to Less Wrong! Please feel free to introduce yourself in that thread.
Valid concern. I don’t know how to get more people active, but it couldn’t hurt to get more people aware of this community.
The more people you attract, the more likely some percentage of those people will continue to becoming active, contributing members. Everyone starts out as a visitor. Only a few of those end up becoming regulars. If you get more visitors, your regulars proportionally should rise.
Contrariwise, the worse a first impression you leave, the fewer visitors will remain long enough to become regulars. It is not a priori obvious which effect is the stronger.