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NancyLebovitz comments on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA - Less Wrong
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If I may say so, there is something troubling about your third paragraph (edited, with emphasis added):
Try to imagine substituting other forms of consensual social interaction here, and seeing if the tone feels right. For example, right now the economy is bad in many places, and many people are unemployed. I can easily imagine that there are numerous self-help courses that teach people how to make themselves more attractive to employers, by teaching them how to behave during interviews, etc. Now obviously no such program can guarantee anyone a job. Imagine, however, that some poor soul -- let's make her a woman -- goes through these courses, does everything she can to improve her prospects, but still can't manage to secure a job. Presumably, a person in that position would naturally feel a sense of frustration; they may even feel that they are the victim of unfairness. Can you imagine applying a word like creepy to this -- general, unspecified, hypothetical -- woman's distress? ("Creepy" is about the strongest form of social condemnation that exists in near mode -- i.e. when we're not talking about distant political villains.) Would you feel the need to point out -- in a rather defensive-sounding way -- that employers are in fact free to reject those whom they regard as less-than-qualified candidates? It's unlikely you would worry too much about such a person turning to violence -- and to the extent you did, it would probably be in the standard sympathetic way in which thoughtful, liberal people usually discuss the relationship between poverty and crime.
I don't mean to single you out personally and question your motives, so please don't take what follows that way; but it seems to me that underlying remarks like these -- which I have seen and heard from many people in many places over the years -- is a fundamentally inadequate level of sympathy for "unattractive" men. I wonder if it's time someone made the bound-to-be-controversial suggestion that women in modern society are excessively conservative when it comes to granting sexual favors. There is apparently no greater female nightmare scenario than mating with a less-than-optimally-attractive male. The Darwinian reasons why this should be the case are too obvious to be worth stating; but it should be equally obvious that such behavior is less than rational in our modern era of contraception: sex simply doesn't have the same dangers that it did in the ancestral environment.
(I would guess that the analogously irrational male behavior is probably sexual jealousy.)
A job applicant who seems likely to resent being turned down will appear creepy to potential employers.
Men do the same sort of thing. Really. Hunt around a little for examples of fat-bashing.
The only gender difference I can see is that a significant proportion of men [1] are apt to verbally attack unattractive women just for existing, while women are more apt to wait for a pass to be made by an unattractive man.
Is there anything in PUA about what sets off the "creepy guy-- I don't want to be anywhere near him" response as distinct from mere "not sexually interested"? I'm not talking about "less than optimally attractive", and your phrasing it that way strikes me as dishonest arguing. The vast majority of women have children with less than optimally attractive men.
[1] It may well be under 5% of men who do that sort of thing-- it's still apt to be quite a buzz-kill for women on the receiving end of it.
I think this is actually an example of the sort of double standard that komponisto is talking about.
It's a pretty mainstream view that the fact that men find overweight women unattractive is either a problem with individual men's judgement (excessive focus on physical appearance over other attributes, unrealistic expectations for a partner's physical appearance etc.) or some kind of wider problem with society focusing on unrealistic or unrepresentative examples of physical beauty ('anorexic' models and actresses etc.).
While probably not a majority view, it seems to me that it is far more common to see this view expressed and this issue discussed in the media than the view that men who are generally perceived as unattractive by women are victims of either a problem with the judgement of individual women or a problem with the ideals of male attractiveness promoted by society or the media.
This sounds like over-generalizing from personal experience to me. My memories of school are of the most hurtful verbal attacks coming from girls but without some statistical data I'm going to assume that both of us are biased by the salience of particular instances of verbal abuse we have observed.
My personal experience is of harassment at school by girls, to a large extent for being short and for having feet that turned out. Later, I've been subject to some street harassment, but not a lot as such things go. And not enough to generally affect my experience of being out of doors. Weirdly, the worst was from a neighbor kid who looked like she was about five.
I've had more harassment about my weight from my mother than from the general public.
My take on what fat women in general have to put up with is from reading a lot of fat-acceptance material.
My impression is that mean girls at school are much more likely to go after other girls than boys, but I could well be mistaken.
NancyLebovitz:
This is true if you judge people's speech and reactions by the usual standards of discourse in polite society, but not if you take into account their actual hurtfulness and the actual level of repugnance and scorn being manifested.
Men are indeed apt to appraise women's attractiveness explicitly in crude and vulgar terms, much more so than vice versa. However, the ways in which women talk about unattractive men might sound gentler and far more polite, but it's naive to think that unattractive men don't get the message, and that they don't get hurt just as much as unattractive women who get called by various explicit bad names. Moreover, whenever I hear girls damning some unattractive guy with faint praise, I always feel like it would be more honest if they just scorned and trashed him explicitly, considering the status they assign to him for all practical purposes.
Another thing is that even when stated in the most explicit and crude terms, men's usual complaints and negative appraisals about women tend to sound harsher and more vulgar than the other way around. It just happens that the words typically involved in the former have a much more politically incorrect and inflammatory impact, even though the latter are not any less harsh and damning by any reasonable standard.
You're addressing a different aspect, I think. Do unattractive men have to deal with street harassment by women? Online attacks just because there's a picture of them?
ISTM that unattractive men are denounced online by women all the time, but it's usually based on what a man has said or done, not their appearance.
School-age unattractive males (up to and including college age) are "street harassed" by women as well. As a teenager, I was chased, threatened and verbally abused by females in a variety of venues, despite (or perhaps because) I just wanted to be left alone.
Women most assuredly do harass men, and I assure you they are much more creative in finding ways to inflict lasting emotional pain.
Thanks for the information.
I can believe that women are more skilled at inflicting emotional pain. In a fit of compulsiveness, I read a long discussion about abusive schoolgirls (sorry, no cite, probably about five years ago, and possibly on livejournal), and, yeah.
Yes, this was my experience as well.
How can you assure me? Through your own personal experiences, or can you point me to a series of scientifically-conducted studies on the issue? I assure you, only one of those would assure me.
I have little experience with men harassed by women, but based on how viciously some women harass each other, I am perfectly willing to agree that women can be very hurtful. All I object to is your apparent willingness to generalize your personal experiences with X into a comparison between X and Y.
I was comparing the subsets of X and Y that had bullied or harassed me personally.
You didn't actually mention Y, but even if you had, you wouldn't have data to support the comparison of abuses(X,Y) to abuses(Y, X), which seemed to be your claim.
As I said, I was comparing abused-by(X, me) to abused-by(Y, me), in rejection of the hypothesis that males are not subjected to cruel "street harassment" by females.
Your notation is unconventional - I read "abused-by(X,you)" as "X was abused by you". I know this is the converse of what you really meant.
Yes, I've seen that happen at times. I make a habit of bullying the perpetrators wherever I see it (and where it is appropriate and convenient to do so) but it certainly happens.
People are cruel, particularly when dealing with lower status targets. It's disgraceful whatever the sex of the victim.
Another difference is that (some) men also talk in crude and vulgar ways about attractive women too.
And about males, and inanimate objects. And fictional stories. I'd go as far as to say that some men just talk in crude and vulgar ways. Also, they are usually hairier and more smelly.
Extremely short answer: Degree to which the unattractive male appears to submit to the social reality as she sees it.
Many "alpha" behaviours can be creepy.
Someone being submissive is not creepy.
This as a personal note, not as a general truth.
Violet:
Some of the very pinnacles of creepiness are achieved by men who attempt to pull off difficult and daring high-status behaviors but fall short of doing it successfully. I don't know if this is what you had in mind with the scare quotes, but with this interpretation, your comment is very accurate.
I remember there was an old post at Overcoming Bias discussing this sort of situation, where a man's failed attempt at a high-status display backfires and raises an awful red flag that he's a clueless sort of guy who doesn't know his proper place and will probably self-destruct for that reason. Unfortunately, I can't remember the title and I don't have the link archived.
I think they go more into a "that person is more likely defect for his own win than cooperate" and "that person does not seem safe".
Also being somewhat sensitive to the system people doing a status competition just stink on a personal level.
Then again I prefer androgynous cooperative helpful people, rather than overtly masculine (or feminine) ones.
Others might find the same behaviors very hot.
Absolutely this is why such a strong epithet as "creepy" is applied. The implication is that such a deranged individual is one step away from running amok, raping and killing.
It was rhetorical understatement, perhaps -- not quite the same thing as dishonest arguing. But note that what is meant here is "less than optimally attractive among their own options".
As for men and fat-bashing, etc., yes, that's also quite bad. However, I was under the impression that criticizing this was already far from taboo in elite circles
In any event, I don't want to deny any symmetry that may exist, and I don't think it would be fair to impute such a denial to me on the grounds that I specifically discussed only one side of the coin.
(And it's interesting how so far no one has noticed the parenthetical sentence at the end of my comment.)
The one about sexual jealousy? I thought it was foolish, but not in a way directly relevant to the part I was most motivated to critique, so I let it be. Women experience sexual jealousy too; implying that it's the special province of men has the weird consequence of implying that women would all rather be some flavor of poly, which is false.
It didn't imply that, any more than the earlier part implied that men never reject women.
The proposal was that male sexual jealously is analogous to female mate selectivity in the specific way I was discussing.
Also, really, I think "foolish" is unnecessarily hostile language. Wouldn't "incorrect" suffice?
In this thread, you have used language and expressed opinions which have sounded antagonistic and upsetting to me. I did not intend to be hostile in return, and apologize if my emotional state has caused me to use poor word choice in such a way as to upset you.
This is perhaps the best reason for creating some kind of spin-off or sub-community along the lines of that suggested in the post. Some people, for whatever reason, find this sort of discussion personally upsetting or objectionable. Currently that means there will either be posts and comments that cannot be made at all or conversations will end up being derailed with people claiming (and giving) offence.
If there was a spin off site for rationalist socialization discussion then comments on LW that enter the political minefield that is sex can be deemed off topic and redirected. Readers who are offended by discussion of PUA, etc, will be able to read LW freely. Commenters on the subsite who are irritated by repetitive responses that seem hostile to them will be able to manage that community with the standard "do not feed trolls" rule.
Does what the women are upset about make any sense to you?
Reading your post gives me the impression that you think topics related to sex just blow up for no particular reason, but I may be wrong.
wedrifid said:
I disagree. This is exactly the sort of discussion that needs to happen between rationalists with different sorts of life experiences (e.g. male and female rationalists). The controversial nature of these subjects shows why it needs to be hashed out, not that these subjects need to be avoided. Of course, individuals are free to bow out of these discussions.
Nancy said:
Yes, put particular details about the exchange don't quite make sense to me.
Originally, SarahC made the point that pickup won't guarantee men success with women, and women are still free to reject PUAs. I don't quite understand why she brought up this point in the first place, and I'm not sure why she speculated about a potential for violence. PUAs know very well that their methods don't guarantee success with any particular woman, and they work very hard on coping strategies to deal with rejection. She said:
This quote made me wonder if SarahC thinks that any complaint of unfairness by men in the dating world is evidence of "entitlement" and "creepiness." I didn't get on her case about this, because I know that she has run into some of the more icky PUA stuff, which could well give her the impression that PUAs hold such attitudes. Instead, I asked her why she might not believe that PUAs recognize the validity of women rejecting them.
Yet I think komponisto asked a good question: whether SarahC would judge complaints in other domains (like getting hired for a job) by the same standard, and consider frustration and complaints of unfairness to be evidence of "entitlement" and "creepiness."
Unfortunately, in the same comment, komponisto made this point:
More on that comment, later.
Alicorn pointed out that sexual interaction is qualitatively different from other forms of interaction, such as hiring. Furthermore, she observed that given the prevalence of sexual violence, we should have higher priors that men might react to rejection with violence, that we should have for job-seekers.
While granting the distinctions Alicorn observes between men trying to date women, and job hunters, I'm still not sure why we got on the subject of sexual violence. The reason is because Alicorn's priors may apply to the reference class of all men, but with PUAs, we have a different reference class. We know that PUAs are interested in figuring out and fulfilling women's criteria, which seems at odds with PUAs feeling "entitled" and that women's rejections of them are "unfair."
Alicorn may have some other reference classes that influence her priors about PUAs. Still, I don't think it was appropriate for SarahC to jump from the observation of PUAs claiming methods that consistent attract women, to the notion that PUAs might get frustrated if these methods don't work, hold a sense of creepy entitlement, and potentially respond with violence. I fully acknowledge that SarahC might have good reasons to hold such suspicions, but she hasn't yet shared what they are.
Now, let's return to reactions to komponisto's comment.
I fully understand why this comment pattern-matches so many negative things. It does sound like komponisto might be advocating that women be sexual with men in situations where they aren't sure they want to be sexual (or don't want to be sexual). I had the same reaction as pjeby.
It's useful for komponisto to know the problematic interpretations of his comment. It's understandable that Alicorn wasn't able to read it charitably, but that doesn't mean that a more charitable interpretation doesn't exist. pjeby suggested one, for instance:
The charitable interpretation: komponisto wasn't suggesting that women should do things they don't want with men; he was suggesting that they be less conservative in what they want with men in the first place. He explains in his next post:
After he said this, I was kinda wanting one of the women in the thread to say "OK, now I see what you mean."
In my view, discussions about sex on LW blow up for many reasons, and only one of those reasons is men being insensitive.
I've often noticed that women seem to be running a "creepiness detection routine" towards men's sexuality. In real life, there are good reasons for them to do so. In internet conversations, it's useful for men to know what kind of arguments trigger that routine, because those arguments potentially sound like their aren't respectful of women's bodily autonomy, self-determination, and consent.
Simultaneously, it's also useful for women to know that many men are sick of negative associations with their sexuality, and the expansive application of the word "creepy." Note MC_Echerischia's brusque response:
I think that women having a "creeped out" response triggered is useful data for discussion on LessWrong, but I don't want to see it running the discourse here. If such a reaction is presented, it's probably most useful to try to explain where it's coming from. Clarification of the creepy statement can always be requested.
I find it a shame that Alicorn isn't currently willing to discuss possible criticisms of women's preferences, and that komponisto subsequently bowed out of the discussion. I respect the preference of both those individuals to not want to engage in such a discussion at this time, but I think that those discussions are important, and I wish they could occur here.
Personally, I'm not very interested in criticizing women's preferences because I'm skeptical about how malleable people's preferences are, yet since (as mattnewport points out ) it's culturally acceptable to critique the basis for men's preferences in women, I think it should be an open question what level of choice people have over their mating preferences, and what could be reasons for them to change their preferences.
I agree that this sentence of komponisto's is where things blew up.
Too conservative for who? Who gains under the new system? He frames it as women "granting sexual favors", not, for example, as women having more fun or a larger selection of potential mates or anything else they might want. I think that's where the entitlement issues showed up.
I think everyone would be better off if men were less picky about women's appearances. If you optimize for that one thing, it's harder to optimize for anything else, including various sorts of compatibility.
However, I think it would be rude to push that point of view-- it seems so clear that men want what they want, and generally don't want to want to be different. (I think there was someone here who did want to want to have broader tastes in women, but couldn't manage it.)
There might be some binary thinking going on-- "should be less conservative about granting sexual favors" may be apt to trigger memories of the least attractive men who wanted them rather than the men who just barely didn't make the cut. "Granting sexual favors" does suggest a high-to-low status situation.
When I suggested men being less picky about women's appearance, did that seem to imply being attracted to somewhat less currently physically attractive women, or being attracted to women you currently find physically very unattractive?
More komponisto:
What is to be done by who? Why should they care? And, for that matter, how much work would it take for women to adjust their desires, and by what means?
I don't know if I should be blaming anyone for not getting this aspect of things since it's taken me this long to drag it into consciousness, but I think this is why the creep-o-meter and physical danger alarms are going off.
In a previous discussion, someone was making a utilitarian calculation which seemed to ignore women's interests-- and when I asked him about it, it turned out that he had. I didn't underline it at the time, but it's really unnerving to be that much of a blank spot.
I agree with this. The problem I seek to avoid by having an alternate place for such discussions is that of having the vast majority of discussion effort diverted to 'meta' discussion. Currently discussion of what human sexual preferences (gender typical and otherwise) are and what techniques are most useful in social interactions are extremely diluted. Most actually interesting material that can be used to enhance our models of the world ends up only included as footnotes and tangents among justifications and criticisms of stereotypes.
I would like people to make posts and comments on the actual subject matter. I'd like it if the majority of replies to be agreement, disagreement, elaboration and general discussion of the ideas contained therein. Because then I'd have a chance to learn something new.
Altering one's preferences, especially ones as deeply lodged as ones about sexuality, is a difficult project. I expect I could accomplish certain hacks in myself because self-modification is something I practice and have developed good instincts about. I don't expect women in general to share this ability. So what would it accomplish to hammer out a new set of ideal preferences that it would be better if women had instead? They can't adopt them on purpose even if they see the logic indicating that they should. At best, they can follow a norm that has them act as though they adopt these new preferences, and that just has them acting contrary to their own real preferences to suit those of men.
If there's some point to entertaining criticism of women's preferences (as opposed to my own atypical preferences which are unlikely to percolate out into the population) that I have missed, do please let me know.
I found that part of komponisto's comment creepy, and I'm neither a woman, nor do I have anything against men wanting more sex.
The suggestion in the comment, though, was creepy for precisely the same reason that the "this could lead to violence" arguments are creepy: both are attempts to influence others to change their actions via social disapproval, rather than through more positive/egalitarian means.
I find this sort of victim-rhetoric (i.e., "I'm helpless so YOU should change") to be equally offensive, regardless of the kind of victimhood claimed, or the gender of the self-described victim.
(Of course, since I own my offense, I don't project this back into the world to say that either komponisto or Alicorn are therefore bad people who should be punished or prevented from speaking. IOW, I am not a victim.)
Why did I bring it up? Because I was worried about this George Sodini business, and because the promotional material you showed me seemed excessively optimistic in its promises of success with women, and because I think the kind of man having enough trouble that he's willing to pay for a seduction course might be less astute and less realistic than average. I do think desperate guys can get suckered in by promises, and by an ideology that makes seduction look like victory. I think bad things can happen when you tell unhappy people "Here is a way for you to triumph over all the [insert bad word, maybe "political correctness police"] who are keeping you down." That pattern has played out many times and sometimes the results are undesirable. It's just something to be careful about.
On the other hand, you (HughRistic) have been very reasonable, and I'm pretty sure your kind of PUA is a good thing, and you obviously aren't a desperate person in the grip of an ideology. Maybe that kind of thing is rare; I've seen it on the internet but obviously that doesn't tell me if it's common.
I don't think "any complaint of unfairness in the dating world" is creepy. I just don't. I don't think anybody around here is creepy. I think creeps are creepy. I thought we might be able to agree to be anti-creep.
You come up with a system like PUA, I think it's fair to ask you to disclaim unethical use of it. It must get tiring after a while, but that's the way things work. People who make and play video games have to say, over and over again, "No, games do not make people go on shooting sprees, and we're doing our best not to encourage that." I'm sure they're sick of it, but they've made themselves the ambassadors of their art, like it or not. People will judge your art based on its ambassadors.
Yes.
I know the reasons well enough to realise that the 'blowing up' will not go away without creating a separate place for discussing such topics in an objective, rational manner. I wouldn't dream of demanding that people refrain from taking the discussion personally on LW. When on a subsite dedicated to game theory as directly applied to humans then I would expect people to refrain from sabotaging objective discussions, when there is a very real opportunity to simply not to expose themselves to them.
Claiming offence is an extremely powerful political weapon. In a value neutral sense, ensuring that a topic blows up is an attempt to assert political influence on the outcome. And politics is the mind killer. I would like there to be a place to discuss topics related to sex in a purely objective manner. Because it just facts. Facts are just true of false. Not outrageous or unacceptable.
I don't know if it's possible to discuss anything in a purely objective manner, sex especially, since it's a topic into which most people bring a lot of biases regardless of how objective and rational they're trying to be. If such a topic is discussed by a group of people who are likely to have the same set of biases towards the subject, then that can create a blind spot. And sex in particular requires deep understanding of both men's and women's psychology and socialization to make headway on, so there may be a limit to how much a discussion involving only one sex could accomplish. I wouldn't want to lose insightful perspectives like Alicorn's "gifts vs commodities" comment that otherwise might not come up. I'd be willing to sift through the strong emotions (that mostly fit the facts) the topic may inspire in order to maximize my exposure to such insights.
So, if I understand you, under your proposal, comments like this one would no longer appear here on LW? Because people who cannot help making them would have another outlet?
One of the ancestors of that comment would probably be a link to the other site, yes.
I don't like the tone. You seem to be suggesting that wanting to make such a comment is a personal failing. I don't agree.
What I meant to suggest is that a failure to foresee that such a comment would be offensive (to many people) would be a personal failing of one variety. And if you were able to make the prediction, but felt that the comment was so insightful and relevant to the discussion that it needed to be made regardless of who was offended, then that would be a different kind of personal failing. But what I suspect actually happened is that you set out deliberately to cause offense. And, yes, in the absence of provocation, I consider that a personal failing too.
The tone was indeed disapproving. I didn't expect you to like it. All I really expect is that you might take note of the disapproval. Please notice that at least some of your fellow males really dislike the culture of misogyny around here. And particularly, the smug way in which the victims get blamed for their own discomfort while the victimizers pretend to noble, but puzzled, tolerance.