I self-identify as a feminist but I'm troubled by a ban on discussing PUA techniques. In the discussions I've seen I've usually come down on Alicorn's side. But I wonder if the need to avoid language that is objectifying or excluding requires us to avoid the topic of pua/game in its entirety. That seems strange. The times I've seen complaints voiced have had to do with how the topic is brought up not the topic itself.

For example if someone says, "I think posters on less wrong don't value having sex with women." Or "here's how you can get women to sleep with you." then the sense in which female posters are being excluded is pretty obvious. But I don't see why a discussion of game needs to necessarily be done in this way. Its just that, unlike all the other subjects we discuss here, game isn't a typical topic in academia so the traditional ways of communicating methods and knowledge is "Here's what you do to bed women" rather than a descriptive account of behavior or an experiment. Obviously any account which attempts to predict the behavior of people will be objectifying-- but that isn't the problem. The problem is that as it is traditionally discussed PUA theory only objectifies women. Indeed, it subjectifies men when it is explained in first or second person. What we ought to do here is stop talking about it like that and start talking about game the way we do signaling and evolutionary psychology-- so that both the men and the women are objectified.

Similarly, because pua theory has been developed by a community of straight men/straight male run businesses it isn't used to incorporating female and homosexual voices. In the same way that male-dominated university sciences has long had a weaker understanding of female sexuality than male sexuality (someone can correct me, that has always been my understanding) the PUA industry has little to say about how women seduce men and even less about developing attraction between lesbians and gays. But there is no necessary reason for this topic to exclude those voices, its just overwhelming has in the past. I don't know if such a male dominated community could or would make strides in this area. However, as long as we didn't lose the good female feminists on this site (We must have some non-hetero posters too!?) I think we could have discussions on this topic that don't exclude.

Do those who feel excluded think that this topic needs to be outright banned or do they think there is a way that PUA theory could be discussed that you wouldn't object to (along the lines I mentioned above)?