PUA's

Dr. Helen has a link commenting on PUA's - that is "pick up artists." Get used to the acronyms if you choose to read up on this. Either some few with a strong founder effect on the phenomenon of game likes thinking in abbreviations, or this male type in general likes it. The longer article is here is you want to skip directly to that.

The concept is that women's sexual responses can be hacked, using their evolutionary hardwiring against them to seduce them. An idea rather frightening even if only partly true. There is apparently a lot of interest by proponents of what they call game in more academic discussions of what it all means in understanding male-female relationships in general, the future of the human race if knowledge of game becomes more widespread, whether the techniques discussed have wider application for leadership and politics, and, I imagine, a dozen other related items. One reads all this with a sort of horrified fascination.

I don't know the history of this - I recall reading in college that Balzac had claimed that any man could seduce any woman if he would only listen long enough - though I have little doubt that there is much discussion of natural game versus game as an intentional manipulation if one wanted to search for it. And certainly some of the more basic points have been long observed. For example, that women say they want sensitive caring men but go to bed with bad boys has been noted by most high school males. The traditional counters to this, that this only applies to a subset of women and is most prominent in younger women, are acknowledged by some proponents and emphatically denied by others. Questions of what the PUA's ultimately decide they really want in a relationship also take up much discussion space.

I should note that while this sounds like mere braggadocio and hopeful wishing on the part of some men, the proponents have actually amassed evidence that what they claim is in fact true and observable, whether anyone wants it to be true or not. They would claim that it is the disbelief that is mere braggadocio and hopeful wishing on the part of women.

It's hardly surprising that this concept of manipulating others via the use of artificial techniques would emerge from discussions of seduction. But similar things have been claimed about the behavior of tyrannical political groups, cult religions, and sales techniques. Something of these more general applications did show up in Lewis's That Hideous Strength, sounding quite plausible in that context. It may be that we all can be hacked in many ways, and this is simply one aspect, attracting much energy and attention for obvious reasons.

I like to think I would not have used this in high school and college even if I had known. Yet I can't say that with any assurance.

I don't think it is wise to dismiss this as impossible simply because we can invent arguments why it shouldn't be true. That the wilder claims are unlikely doesn't mean that there's not something to it.