… the women the PUAs are after aren’t the kind that interest me, much of “game” as described in the PUA culture fills me with a mix of recognition and revulsion. And a third, more complex reaction that is the real reason I’m writing this essay.
One one hand, I recognize techniques like kino escalation. Oh, do I ever! Adroit use of that one has gotten me into the sack more times than I can count. On the other hand, I’m basically incapable of what PUAs call the neg; I can’t insult a woman even by implication unless I think she’s done something to specifically deserve it, and the thought of flinging negs to score sex disgusts me in a very fundamental way.
On the gripping hand … I recognize a harsh truthfulness in a lot of what the PUAs are saying. Crudely put, the “game” advice for most men (the population PUAs call AFCs or “Average Frustrated Chumps”) reduces to behaving like an asshole so women will mistake you for an alpha. I really am an alpha, so I don’t have to asshole-fake it — but it is nevertheless quite clear to me that the PUAs are on to something. This is frequently a successful strategy; I’ve been outcompeted by it myself on several humiliating occasions. Furthermore, the PUAs are probably correct in asserting that for many AFCs it is the best strategy available, and never mind that the thought of running it myself turns my stomach.
In the PUA’s disturbingly persuasive analysis, I’ve had the luxury of not treating women like shit only because I have often had USPs for the brighter-than-average women I was interested in, notably in the combination of alpha-male qualities with high intelligence and expressive skills. Without those USPs, argues the PUA, my choices would have reduced to “frustrated loser” or “sexually successful douchebag” — and, looking at my own experience and that of my less successful peers, I find myself unable to refute this.
That is kind of horrifying if you think about it. Possession of USPs is rare by definition, and if you have one you’re more than averagely likely to be an alpha anyway. The PUA is telling us that human beings are designed in such a way that the most reliable way for the large majority of beta males to get sex is to behave like narcissistic, dominating, emotionally-unavailable jerks. This would be appalling enough as pure theory, but the PUA makes it worse by applying it to actually have lots of sex. “Success” one blog unsparingly observes “is defined by penis in vagina”. Never take your eye off that ball, says the PUA. Much as one might like to dismiss this as crass reductionism, evolutionary theory makes any countercase rather difficult to argue.
How did our poor species get into this hole? The PUA community gravitates to evolutionary-psychology explanations for human behavior as much as I do, it’s one of the interesting things about reading their stuff. It’s remarkable how often they manage to apply facts about human reproductive biology in a tactical way. The use they make of evo-bio concepts like hypergamy, peacocking, and sexy-son theory is, I find, sound and justified. The kind of pitiless clinical eye they turn on human mating interactions could scarcely be bettered by most scientists.
But the PUAs don’t, at least so far as I’ve yet seen, have a generative explanation for why women friend-zone nice guys and fuck bad boys. They accept this as the foundation of game without asking what circumstances in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness stuck women with apparently counterproductive wiring.
I’ve thought about this, and the only plausible explanation I can come up with is that in the EEA, when early humans lived in small hunting bands, the behaviors modern assholes now use to fake alpha must have been reliable indicators of superior status. Perhaps they were much more risky to fake in a small society where beta males were almost constantly under they eye of senior alphas with hard fists.
Meanwhile, back in modernity, we’re stuck with the consequences – men who have been trained to be imitation-alpha jerks and abusers by women who are sexually fickle, manipulative and cruel towards beta males. It’s not a pretty picture, not if you’re looking in from halfway outside it like me and certainly not if you’re stuck in the middle of it as an invisible AFC or a woman wondering why she’s surrounded by douchebags.
Eric S. Raymond, “A natural contemplates game”, Armed and Dangerous, 2011-03-03.
November 27, 2023
QotD: The PUA (Pick-up Artist)
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