Well, that's not really true
. But even if it were, why would that be a problem? You've already said that you're down with the casual sexings, and saying that PUA make it just about finding sex rather than a woman to have sex with sounds more like rhetoric trickery than an argument.
@DG: See, I have no problem with "dress nice, be interesting". The problem is that that's not PUA. PUA is way more detailed and often way more creepy than "dress nice, be interesting".
Saying that PUA techniques "are for the purpose of tricking women into accepting sex they would otherwise refuse" does not answer the question, because anything you can do that makes someone interested in having sex with you by definition creates a "yes" where there would otherwise have been a "no".
See, I think you're trying to resist the entire notion of deception.
If you were applying for a job, and you gave the interviewer your resume, that would be perfectly moral; that it makes them more likely to hire you is the entire point.
But if you were applying for a job, and you gave the interviewer a FAKE resume, that would be wrong, not because it makes the interviewer more likely to hire you per se, but because it's a forged signal; the basis on which the interviewer thinks they are hiring you does not exist.
So, if you go in and tease a girl you want to have sex with, that's an honest signal of "no intent to harm"* and is perfectly okay. But if you go in and neg a girl you want to have sex with, that seems like the same kind of signal but it's not, which means it's deception, which is wrong. And the reason it's wrong is the same reason any other kind of deception is wrong; you might be a perfectly nice guy that just happens to use PUA, but then again you might also be Gunwitch
. And if you feel the need to forge the signal it's pretty likely you're not the former.
But it's harmful because it's manipulative. If he was going through the exact same set of actions with a girl who could read his mind it wouldn't be harmful.
Except "dress nice, be interesting" is pretty much what it boils down to. It's the "be interesting" bit that leads to all the complexity. It's like teaching someone how to write a resume that catches the interviewer's eye, not teaching them how to falsify information.
@DG: Here is the definition of negging from Urban Dictionary.
PU As don't actually care how their targets feel; the entire point of PUA is to get sex. Feels nice or feels bad doesn't matter to them.
I thought that at the beginning of this thread Drunkscriblerian laid out this straightforward position on how blatantly stereotypical, and exceedingly rare this swaggering, alpha-male type douchebag was, and how pick-up artistry was actually far more organic, to the point that it's barely even identifiable as such.
If we're going to take PUA's on such limited terms, then yeah, sure, just about all pick up artistry is bad and amoral, and makes women feel bad, and probably makes it harder for a large segment of the population to have more fulfilling relationships.
But I'd say that defining any complex aspect of social interaction (especially the kind gets people to initiate something like sex, which has even more complex motivational aspects to it) under such straightforward terms is going to begin missing the actual, multifarious picture of all the different motivations and reactions, and larger implications.
Thus passing such specific judgments over anyone that might have occasionally used negging is going to lead to nothing but misconception when we're attempting to discern a more accurate understanding about reality. Which unlike deception and manipulation in the broad entirety of human communication, really does lead to errors and counter-productivity almost every time.
If pressed, I'd agree that being overly manipulative and lacking in up-frontness is more likely to hurt a relationship than not, but you'd have to really, really press me before I wouldn't also attach an assload of qualifications about how complex human relations are, and how it's nigh impossible to make generalizations about human behavior.
edited 30th Aug '11 2:23:24 PM by Toodle
Okay, here's the definition straight from Mystery.
He says pretty explicitly it's a way of getting under a "no", which to me is itself more wrong than negging. So congratulations, you've made me discover yet another reason to dislike PUA!
edited 30th Aug '11 2:29:59 PM by BlackHumor
Mystery =/= all PU As though. That's like saying that every Democrat is exactly like Obama.
"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -DrunkscriblerianMystery is one of the most famous PU As in the movement, and also one of the originalsProof , not to mention one of the least aggressive. It's not gonna get any nicer than him. Proof 2
Sure. But that isn't analogous to PUA at all. To quote myself from earlier in the thread, "PUA is like wearing your better clothes and putting on an air of confidence and enthusiasm in a job interview. Occasionally, it may be like lying about being a "go-getter with great people skills, " or some other similar non-statement about your personality. It's very rarely going to be analogous to going in with a stolen identity and handing in a fake resume."
To elucidate, a dating situation comparable to handing in a fake resume would be telling a woman that you're a marine biologist or an architect
when you're actually unemployed. But this isn't what PUA do. What PUA recommend is that even if you are unemployed and live with your parents, you ''act'' like you're a prize, a catch, a high value mate
.
Except that the only way in which those two things might be different is that the neg is more likely to be a deliberate attempt to endear yourself to someone, and you've already said that you don't oppose deliberation. Where exactly is the "deception?"
Sexually motivated violence is hardly exclusive to PU As. Unless you've some evidence to suggest that there's even so much as a positive correlation, you probably shouldn't imply that the two are somehow linked.
It's harmful if it results in a woman having a traumatic sexual experience, which has nothing to do with the manipulation: there is no reason to assume that the woman would feel any better if the "implication" and the resultant traumatic sex happened accidentally. The same is true in the case where the experience is enjoyable to the woman: the presence or absence of manipulation on the man's part doesn't affect that.
Dennis is being unethical in the clip not because he's being manipulative, but because he does not care which of the above scenarios occurs.
PU As don't actually care how their targets feel; the entire point of PUA is to get sex. Feels nice or feels bad doesn't matter to them.
Here
is the definition from an actual PUA site, which, by the way, is the first Google hit for the search words "neg", "pua", and "definition". Of course, it also makes it explicitly clear that the technique is neither an insult nor intended to hurt a woman's feelings, so it's not a huge surprise that you won't link to it.
What I find interesting about you in general is that for someone who claims to dislike manipulation so much, your conversational tactics are rather... manipulative. You cherry pick your evidence, you carefully choose to phrase every example of PUA behavior in terms laden with negative connotations, so as to appeal directly to emotions instead of arguing your position rationally, and so on.
edited 30th Aug '11 3:13:02 PM by MostlyBenign
Just because they explicitly deny that negs are insulting, manipulative, and target a woman's vulnerabilities does not, in fact, mean that negs aren't any of those things. Learn how to read between the lines, especially when your source has an obvious bias and a vested interest in sugarcoating the reality.
@Drunk: Woman to woman, I am curious as to why you find their actions not only appropriate, but defensible.
edited 30th Aug '11 3:19:24 PM by kashchei
And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?Edit ninja'd: I prefer PU As to normal guys. I personally find them, in my experience, to be more honest and far more intelligent about romance and sex than the other guys I've dated, and they advocate not doing the things that piss me off when guys try to get into my pants.
"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -DrunkscriblerianExcept, saying "nice nails, are they real?" isn't exactly high on the list of things to get worked up over.
"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -DrunkscriblerianI'm not really seeing any impartial qualifications about the specifics here, other than "sometimes pick-up artistry has insults and intimidation, and for this reason, it is a universally unacceptable concept." (if you think I summarized that improperly, feel free to start there)
Which is less of an argument that applies universally to pick-up artistry, and more a direct application to one of its aspects.
Which means it's not really a universal argument at all. So I'm not sure where all the universal qualifications are coming from.
If you were to deliberately tease someone that wouldn't be wrong, because you wouldn't be doing anything different from a normal tease, which is after all normally deliberate.
The thing is with a normal tease you're on some level signaling that you are normal and well-adjusted and there is not a high chance that you are an axe murderer. Doing this deliberately is not wrong; however giving the same signals without the intention to signal anything is wrong.
Another analogy: if you're driving, and you turn on your turn signal and stop because you're going to turn, that's not wrong, although deliberate. If you're driving, and you turn on your turn signal and stop because you want to make the car behind you switch lanes* , that is wrong, because you're essentially lying to the person behind you for your own profit.
No it's not, but the point of the guards the PU As are trying to get around is to prevent "people you don't want to have sex with" from having sex with you. Which includes creeps and rapists.
Just because not everyone who gives a fake resume wouldn't have been hired anyway doesn't mean that sometimes it's not wrong to give people a fake resume. Because you don't KNOW if you would've been hired anyway if you didn't get past the stops honestly.
No, but the guy wouldn't be culpable for it. Which would mean, of course, that he wouldn't have done anything wrong. Which means that doing the same thing deliberately is wrong.
Again, splilling versus throwing a drink. Just because it's not wrong to spill your drink on someone doesn't mean it's not wrong to THROW your drink on someone.
That is WHY he's being manipulative! If he would only have sex on a boat-truck if he could guarantee that he would never be in a rape-like scenario, that would not be manipulative!
I swear, sometimes it seems you have no idea what manipulation IS.
@Toodle: I've linked you two of the largest PUA sites on the internet, both holding up Mystery and his techniques as a guru, and you STILL think that's not representative? What IS, then?
No data either of us can gather on this without some kind of research grant is statistically significant; expecting it is an utterly unreasonable burden of proof.
EDIT @DG: If you think you've dated a PUA you probably haven't, or at least you haven't experienced any actual PUA. The point of PUA is explicitely casual sex. A PUA that has some kind of long-term relationship is retired.
edited 30th Aug '11 3:34:08 PM by BlackHumor
It seems to me that you're just refusing to acknowledge information that goes against your existing bias.
It's only supposed to set you apart from the dozen other guys that laud the exact same praise that she's heard a gajillion times before.
Well, among the ones I've personally interacted with, they understand the difference between love and sex, for example. They don't feel the need to set me up for "together forever" if that's not what they're interested in.
The ones I've met have also not had the habit of putting women on a pedestal, and instead treat them as other people playing the dating game. The more traditional guys I've dated and the more feminist guys I've dated had this irritating tendency to treat me like some goddess with all of these awesome traits, and couldn't understand the fact that I'm human and do indeed have flaws.
And so on.
edited 30th Aug '11 3:30:07 PM by DrunkGirlfriend
"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

Then go about procuring it in such a way that will make your partner aware of it. Some men (and women) do. I have no bones to pick with them. My complaint is addressed at those who make women feel vulnerable and inferior in order to get themselves laid.
And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?