To be fair, this is mostly a problem with the jargon, which has mostly been chosen for effect. The jargon phrases actually give little or no indication of how these practices actually work in the field. They are far less nefarious than they appear at first glance:
AMOG …
The preferred AMOG tactic for experienced PUAs is… you guessed it, to befriend the Other Guy since this helps you get an ‘in’ with the group! However, attempts at befriending are not always successful; sometimes the AMOG really is trying to block or compete with you. That’s when something that could be described as “subtle status putdowns” might happen—but by that time, the situation has been antagonized already. Also, PUAs generally strive for effectiveness and do not like wasting effort on a bad “set”—but you can’t eject without putting in some effort to show that you will stand up for yourself in a status contest.
BF DESTROYER
Here’s how “BF destroyers” work: they are subtle ways of figuring out whether your “target” is reasonably happy in her relationship with her bf. If it turns out that she’s not that happy, what’s wrong with making an attempt at a relationship? As we often quote on this site: “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” Or, if you like: “Now I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds.”
BITCH SHIELD
“Bitch shields” happen because women get approached over and over and over in thoroughly uninteresting and unappealing ways. ANY attempt at anything resembling PUA, however loosely, has to be keenly and acutely aware of this effect in order to avert it—mostly by trying to be more interesting and more appealing, and also making this clear upfront.
This is not to deny the problem of antagonizing language in the PUA community, which is a very real issue. But it’s important to put this in perspective.
Edit: As of now, this comment has been downvoted to −3, for unclear reasons. My best guess for this is that the community broadly views discussion about pick-up arts (PUA) as unproductive or politically divisive, or more generally disapproves of it at some level. Nevertheless, it would be nice to have a proper explanation.
I think the downvotes are just expressing disagreement—which is a bit unfortunate, since the entire point of this thread is to tackle the PUA / misogyny issues that have been circulating.
this is mostly a problem with the jargon, which has mostly been chosen for effect.
Maybe. Let’s explore the non-jargon parts. This is first thing upon entering the forum:
How To Approach Any Woman With Zero Chance Of Rejection… This Works EVERY Time!
How To Make Out With Any Woman You Want In 16 Minutes Or Less
The Secret To Developing Emotional Addiction In Women (That Makes Them Loyal And Obedient)
So, all women are the same, you can pressure them to kiss you in <15min, and the goal is obedience? This looks like a scam preying upon the socially awkward. OK, maybe that’s just the web admin, let’s move on...
I can’t help but feel too cynical now when it comes to relationships and women in general. After reading PUA material and from personal experience, i realise that if you treat a woman nice or show vulnerability then it will later stab you in the back, even with girls who have got their heads screwed on and come across as being generally compassionate.
Interesting...many people are expressing agreement. It sounds like the memeplex has actually damaged these folks.
“You’re cherry picking”
Yes, I know. Look, I’m not saying every single person who does PUA is a misogynist, and I’m not saying that all PUA memes are bad. All I’m saying is that a large amount of it is bad, and there are certain extremely misguided ideas which are endemic in the community.
The preferred AMOG tactic for experienced PUAs is
Your essentially saying that the “real” PUA’s aren’t as bad as they seem on the internet, and I have no way of confirming or denying the truth of that statement. From where I’m standing, the website doesn’t mention befriending.
I get it, there can be a good side. In fact, all communities almost always have a good side. Half truths can be refined into full truths. Bad ideas can be reinterpreted into good ideas. But this post and others like it come out acting like everything is fine with PUA, even though the post itself harbors harmful PUA memes. Many of the attitudes I’ve heard here today carry harmful memes.
Here’s how “BF destroyers” work: they are subtle ways of figuring out whether your “target” is reasonably happy in her relationship with her bf. If it turns out that she’s not that happy, what’s wrong with making an attempt at a relationship?
You mean that you inform her that you are interested, wait for her to think it over and inform her boyfriend about the breakup, and then start a relationship? I guess I could get behind that...
First google search result—nope...it doesn’t seem like that’s how it usually goes…
Point being—yes, you can flip all of these around and turn them good. But the PUA community has to actually do that—as it stands right now, they haven’t.
So, all women are the same, you can pressure them to kiss you in <15min, and the goal is obedience? This looks like a scam preying upon the socially awkward. OK, maybe that’s just the web admin, let’s move on...
That’s an ad banner. I don’t think it makes much sense to treat these claims as coming from the seduction community, and most PUAs would not endorse them at all. What’s actually striking here is that PUA is effective enough (especially for socially awkward users who manage to acquire some focused social skills) that a banner ad can make such outlandish claims and not look wildly out of place on the site.
Interesting...many people are expressing agreement.
Note that the forum poster is citing personal experience along with PUA theory as a reason for his cynicism. And there is a lot of similarly-flavored cynicism which does not reference PUA memes at all, and has an even bitterer outlook on women and relationships. Look into the so-called “Nice Guy” phenomenon (which PUAs strongly object to, by the way), the “Men’s Rights” meme cluster and whatnot. PUA is a marked improvement on these meme clusters, while still being epistemically consistent with what we know about human social behavior.
The root problem here is that ‘cynicism’ is a problematic concept, since it conflates (1) epistemic beliefs and (2) markedly negative, scornful and complaining attitudes. It’s not clear at all that most aspiring PUAs share such bad attitudes, and PUA ‘inner game’ practices would tend to avoid and discourage them, if only because they’re markedly unattractive.
You mean that you inform her that you are interested, wait for her to think it over and inform her boyfriend about the breakup, and then start a relationship? I guess I could get behind that...
No, it’s a bit messier than that. Anyway, it’s a rare occurrence when one is actually able to “take over” from an existing relationship: the most common outcome is simply ejecting from the approach. Many posters make this abundantly clear in the linked forum thread. (In fact, I couldn’t even find anything clearly wrong with that thread, although I only looked at the first page.)
A better reason for being familiar with “BF destroyers” is that, as it turns out, women sometimes blurt out the “boyfriend” word as a kind of silly “test” or hoop to jump through, regardless of their actual relationship status.
To be fair, this is mostly a problem with the jargon, which has mostly been chosen for effect. The jargon phrases actually give little or no indication of how these practices actually work in the field. They are far less nefarious than they appear at first glance:
The preferred AMOG tactic for experienced PUAs is… you guessed it, to befriend the Other Guy since this helps you get an ‘in’ with the group! However, attempts at befriending are not always successful; sometimes the AMOG really is trying to block or compete with you. That’s when something that could be described as “subtle status putdowns” might happen—but by that time, the situation has been antagonized already. Also, PUAs generally strive for effectiveness and do not like wasting effort on a bad “set”—but you can’t eject without putting in some effort to show that you will stand up for yourself in a status contest.
Here’s how “BF destroyers” work: they are subtle ways of figuring out whether your “target” is reasonably happy in her relationship with her bf. If it turns out that she’s not that happy, what’s wrong with making an attempt at a relationship? As we often quote on this site: “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” Or, if you like: “Now I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds.”
“Bitch shields” happen because women get approached over and over and over in thoroughly uninteresting and unappealing ways. ANY attempt at anything resembling PUA, however loosely, has to be keenly and acutely aware of this effect in order to avert it—mostly by trying to be more interesting and more appealing, and also making this clear upfront.
This is not to deny the problem of antagonizing language in the PUA community, which is a very real issue. But it’s important to put this in perspective.
Edit: As of now, this comment has been downvoted to −3, for unclear reasons. My best guess for this is that the community broadly views discussion about pick-up arts (PUA) as unproductive or politically divisive, or more generally disapproves of it at some level. Nevertheless, it would be nice to have a proper explanation.
I think the downvotes are just expressing disagreement—which is a bit unfortunate, since the entire point of this thread is to tackle the PUA / misogyny issues that have been circulating.
Maybe. Let’s explore the non-jargon parts. This is first thing upon entering the forum:
So, all women are the same, you can pressure them to kiss you in <15min, and the goal is obedience? This looks like a scam preying upon the socially awkward. OK, maybe that’s just the web admin, let’s move on...
What’s up in the pua lounge?
Interesting...many people are expressing agreement. It sounds like the memeplex has actually damaged these folks.
“You’re cherry picking”
Yes, I know. Look, I’m not saying every single person who does PUA is a misogynist, and I’m not saying that all PUA memes are bad. All I’m saying is that a large amount of it is bad, and there are certain extremely misguided ideas which are endemic in the community.
Your essentially saying that the “real” PUA’s aren’t as bad as they seem on the internet, and I have no way of confirming or denying the truth of that statement. From where I’m standing, the website doesn’t mention befriending.
I get it, there can be a good side. In fact, all communities almost always have a good side. Half truths can be refined into full truths. Bad ideas can be reinterpreted into good ideas. But this post and others like it come out acting like everything is fine with PUA, even though the post itself harbors harmful PUA memes. Many of the attitudes I’ve heard here today carry harmful memes.
You mean that you inform her that you are interested, wait for her to think it over and inform her boyfriend about the breakup, and then start a relationship? I guess I could get behind that...
First google search result—nope...it doesn’t seem like that’s how it usually goes…
Point being—yes, you can flip all of these around and turn them good. But the PUA community has to actually do that—as it stands right now, they haven’t.
That’s an ad banner. I don’t think it makes much sense to treat these claims as coming from the seduction community, and most PUAs would not endorse them at all. What’s actually striking here is that PUA is effective enough (especially for socially awkward users who manage to acquire some focused social skills) that a banner ad can make such outlandish claims and not look wildly out of place on the site.
Note that the forum poster is citing personal experience along with PUA theory as a reason for his cynicism. And there is a lot of similarly-flavored cynicism which does not reference PUA memes at all, and has an even bitterer outlook on women and relationships. Look into the so-called “Nice Guy” phenomenon (which PUAs strongly object to, by the way), the “Men’s Rights” meme cluster and whatnot. PUA is a marked improvement on these meme clusters, while still being epistemically consistent with what we know about human social behavior.
The root problem here is that ‘cynicism’ is a problematic concept, since it conflates (1) epistemic beliefs and (2) markedly negative, scornful and complaining attitudes. It’s not clear at all that most aspiring PUAs share such bad attitudes, and PUA ‘inner game’ practices would tend to avoid and discourage them, if only because they’re markedly unattractive.
No, it’s a bit messier than that. Anyway, it’s a rare occurrence when one is actually able to “take over” from an existing relationship: the most common outcome is simply ejecting from the approach. Many posters make this abundantly clear in the linked forum thread. (In fact, I couldn’t even find anything clearly wrong with that thread, although I only looked at the first page.)
A better reason for being familiar with “BF destroyers” is that, as it turns out, women sometimes blurt out the “boyfriend” word as a kind of silly “test” or hoop to jump through, regardless of their actual relationship status.