Science Daily has an interesting press release from new research about pick-up artistry. Turns out that pick-up techniques do work… on sexist women.
Hall and Canterberry set out to understand the characteristics of men who use aggressive court-ship strategies, based on speed seduction techniques described in the US bestseller “The Game” by Neil Strauss and the popular cable TV program “The Pickup Artist.” They also studied the characteristics of women who find such strategies appealing…
The results showed that men who were keen on ‘one-night stands’ were more likely to use aggressive strategies [i.e. pickup artist strategies] when flirting with women, and women who were also open to casual sex were more likely to respond to this type of aggressive courtship. In addition, men with negative, sexist attitudes towards women, justifying male privilege, were more likely to use assertive strategies, which may serve to ‘put women in their place’ in a submissive or yielding role during courtship. Women with sexist attitudes towards members of their own gender were more likely to be responsive to men’s assertive strategies. This suggests that they find men who treat them in a dominant way during courtship more desirable, because it is consistent with their sexist ideology.
Of course, a study of about a thousand Americans is hardly The Scientific Consensus For Now And Forever. However, this is, to my knowledge, the first time PUA techniques themselves were studied in a scientific context. I’m really happy with these results, of course, because they confirm my pet theory about how pickup works. (If only science were always so cooperative…)
Essentially, this piece provides some evidence for the theory of assortative mating– that is, that people tend want to date people who are like them, or who display certain behavior that signals that that person is like you (such as a geeky man with a thing for women in glasses, or a sexist woman who wants a dominant man). Pickup artistry is successful because it mimics the aggregate dating desires of a particular set of women– sexist women– well enough that the practitioner can become more sexually successful among this group. On the other hand, if the average pick-up artist were dropped in the middle of a munch, negs and fuzzy hat and all, the women would probably decide he was an asshole and go fuck Noah Brand.
For some interesting masculist analysis of the results, LabRat at Atomic Nerds has a post.
“If all the people in power were women who despised women, got into power by backstabbing other women and treated the women below them as disposable, would we say the resultant system is a ‘matriarchy?’”
Uh…yes?
I mean, why wouldn’t we? All the people in power are women. That’s what matriarchy means.
@Skidd: When you look at most animals with polygyny and strong sexual selection, you see bright technicolor males Like this specimen? If humans were truly polygynous, there wouldn’t be such emphasis on female appearance, or a female needing to be of a certain level of physical appearance in order to have sex. Of course, I’m viewing this all through the lens of how sexual behavior works in non-human animals. With our self-awareness, things can be entirely different. Does polygyny really only exist when there is no force of male choice? Why can’t we have a species where both male and… Read more »
This confirms my pet theories as well. In particular, the one girl I know who loves to date/hook up with sexually aggressive men also thinks that her body is too ugly to be seen (even by the people she has sex with) and her that her “lady parts” are too icky to be licked (even though it might feel good).
It’s really sad, but I know a lot of girls who fall for PUA’s, and part of their strategy is to demean you. And these women never learn how to spot these jerks.
To wit, tights have been invented to show off men’s calves during horse-riding.
@ Skidd
Yes but that’s pretty obviously cultural. If you look throughout history there have been times where men were considered the ‘showy’ gender.
I don’t think that supports the idea that we’re polygynous of course, just that both men and women can be seen to be ‘showy’ depending on the cultural context.
By the measure that they’re the ones encouraged towards fashion and makeup? That they’re the ones with “butts and boobs” and are judged on physical appearance. When you look at most animals with polygyny and strong sexual selection, you see bright technicolor males and camouflaged females. You see bucks with impressive racks and inconspicuous does. Reversal of this sexual dimorphism correlates to monogamy or even polyandry (a la Jacanas). If humans were truly polygynous, there wouldn’t be such emphasis on female appearance, or a female needing to be of a certain level of physical appearance in order to have sex.… Read more »
“the fact that females are the “less drab” gender”
By what measure? -.-
Over at my atheist/secularism/skeptic/science forums we lament how bad science reporting is. Yessssssss. As a biologist, and one with a special interest in evolutionary origins of behavior (in non-humans), laymen reporting of scientific studies and how things are skewed is probably my biggest pet peeve. Give me the original journal article any day. People would do better to remind themselves of R and K mating strategies -they are different. See, as a biologist, I’m wondering what the hell this is supposed to mean in the context of humans. r/K selection theory is used in the context of species. Species like… Read more »
@Orange “I imagine being a woman at odds with the largest “women’s movement” might be awkward at times especially when the movement seems to all but demand your loyalty based on your womanhood.” Oddly enough, this is exactly the problem that Feminism is having among young girls and women today. Women are decreasingly likely to self-identify as Feminist for a number of reasons – and an unofficial list would probably look something like this: 1. Women are equal to men now 2. I don’t want to feel guilty for enjoying sex with men 3. I don’t hate men/men have it… Read more »
@ Orange
Sent you an e-mail.
“”Which is a problem I have with feminism in general; it titles all criticism ‘misogyny.'”” It really does, luckily I don’t have to deal with feminism from the position of being a woman (I imagine being a woman at odds with the largest “women’s movement” might be awkward at times especially when the movement seems to all but demand your loyalty based on your womanhood) but I run up against this problem a lot. Any attempt at criticism seems to lead inevitably to one of three things (if not all three over the course of discussion). 1) Feminism is Not… Read more »
@f.: I guess if this flawed study has any takeaways for men, it might be, what ideas do you want to use and reify in your dating life? Is it undesirable to you to be expected to put your girlfriend on a pedestal, provide for her, be the one who usually initiates sex, maybe play the jealous boyfriend, etc? Woo your fiancee with a diamond ring that cost 3 months of your actual salary? Then maybe the more assertive tactics aren’t what you’re looking to use… Yup, exactly. The way you tailor yourself influences who finds you attractive and who… Read more »
@ f ” Is it undesirable to you to be expected to put your girlfriend on a pedestal, provide for her, be the one who usually initiates sex, maybe play the jealous boyfriend, etc? Woo your fiancee with a diamond ring that cost 3 months of your actual salary? Then maybe the more assertive tactics aren’t what you’re looking to use…” That’s sort of what I’m thinking. Being with a woman who requires unnatural levels of agency from a man to get her motor running must be like being with a man who requires a woman look like a porn… Read more »
What irritates me about surveys like this is they take a complex thing like PUA and attempt to reduce it to easily understandable feminist-approved terms then passes it off as “See, we were right”.
@Anders “. Socially held stereotypes are not simply reversible” A lot of them are. Some of those didn’t work quite right, but others were beautifuly descriptive of hypocrisy. If you reverse many of those hostile sexism questions you end up with _feminist_ positions. So why is it that it’s ‘hostile sexism’ when a man holds the position but okay when a feminist does? I know, I know. Patriarchy. But, frankly, I’m getting really tired of a movement that expects from others more then it expects from itself in terms of fairness. And then hides this differential behind an unproven assertion.… Read more »
The Game is a set of techniques to improve ones control over social dynamics. How it sells to people is always some kind of variation of “how to get the most beautiful women to have sex with you”. There is no magic bullets applicable to everyone. But the idea is, that even from superficial stuff like appearance, ethnicity or current venue – you can get a clue on what are your odds to build attraction or to fuck it all up with different behavior. (And you get more confident on what works via interaction.) Negging is probably the most common… Read more »
Interesting, but as others have noted, what this is missing is whether or not the women who respond well have sexist ideas about men – like typhonblue mentioned, expecting men to do all the heavy lifting in terms of approaching them and keeping them interested, etc. or being particularly invested in the idea of man as protector or provider. (Would those be “benevolent sexism” against men? Hmm.) Personally, I always thought of the most well-known PUA tactics as a set of actions that help men do well at acting out a traditional, assertive gender role in a dating context. As… Read more »
Typhoonblue: I don’t want to be part of a movement that can’t be criticized
well put, neither will I. If a movement cant be criticized well then it deserve to be flood with criticism. And this is for everything, MRM, Feminism, Catholicism, the Pope ect ect ect…..
About PUA’s the main goal is not the tecnique they use in the field. You can neg the entire day without bein taken in consideration by nobody. What it is important, is you learn to interact with the other gender and yours, with ease. Remember this was made for people who had a whery hard time talking to women, and it has helped alot. All the “moves” PUA’s learn are only introductory, they are made so you can erase your approach anxiety and at the same time not only improve yourselv but expand your personal compendium of social relations. How… Read more »
AndersH:
I took their damn survey and noted how broad the questions were. In short, very poorly defined questios -very useless survey. I haven’t examined this paper but if they were using such poorly constructed scales to assess the results of their research – well, garbage in, garbage out.
Sorry, that should be “MOST of these”.
Typhon, your simplistic attempt at role-reversal and incorrect summary of “agree and you’re a sexist” doesn’t help anyone. Socially held stereotypes are not simply reversible, and it’s “agree with ALL of these and you’re classified on the sexist end of the spectrum”.
@ Blackhumor “Whether a typical feminist makes reasonable demands is highly subjective, depending on what you consider “typical” and “reasonable”.” So you acknowledge that feminists exist who make unreasonable demands. You might consider these feminists ‘baggage’ attached to feminism. Also, this is exactly my point. The survey is structured so that you can have no reservations about feminists without being labeled a hostile sexist. That means it’s coercing compliance. Which is a problem I have with feminism in general; it titles all criticism ‘misogyny.’ I don’t want to be part of a movement that can’t be criticized, that just has… Read more »
I found their contact info :3
http://www.coms.ku.edu/faculty/jeffrey.shtml
http://www.psych.ku.edu/psych_programs/social_students.shtml
If ppl have questions for the authors of the paper, they could email them and ask them? 😀 I dunno if ppl might get a response tho… but it’s worth a shot, and they could give better answers or explanations than any of us trying to figure it out :3
@typhon: As usual, “Xs” does not imply “all Xs without exception”; it means “a typical member of group X”. So “birds fly” is true even though there exist flightless birds. Whether a typical feminist makes reasonable demands is highly subjective, depending on what you consider “typical” and “reasonable”. (Also, you realize regender doesn’t work well on lists of stereotypes, right? You can’t produce a list of stereotypes of men by switching the pronouns in a list of stereotypes of women. Oh, and the opposite of “feminist” is “masculist”, not “MRA”. The term “MRA” has a LOT of baggage attached to… Read more »