Oligopsony said:

I think these are all worthy questions, but I can't agree with the implication that this lessens (if that is the implication - my apologies if I have misread you) our concerns over compliance tricks.

Thanks for helping me nail down what it is I am saying. I really appreciate it when people ask me to clarify, rather than jump to conclusions (and down my throat).

I actually don't know whether we should have less worry about compliance tricks or not, because I'm still not exactly clear about what "compliance tricks" means (same with "manipulation"). If any sort of mundane request falls under that heading, then perhaps we shouldn't be so concerned about all sorts of compliance tricks, because some of them are innocent. If "compliance tricks" refers to something more narrow and extreme, then we should be concerned.

My intuition is that there are problematic behaviors that could fall under "manipulation" or "compliance tricks," but I'm really not sure what other people mean by those terms in this discussion. No concrete examples have been given. I proposed one to SarahC (David X's "I thought you were adventurous"), but she didn't seem to think it was manipulative.

Removing someone's ability to say "yes" is bad; I don't think anyone disputes this.

Not explicitly, at least.

But I don't see any respect in which curtailing compliance tricks will seriously compromise anyone's ability to say yes. (I'm sure one could come up with particular side examples.)

That depends on what "compliance tricks" means. Any request could induce compliance. If you curtail requests, then it becomes harder for people to say "yes" if you don't ask. What distinguishes a "compliance trick" from a request that is not a "compliance trick?"

I'm not sure if this would be reading you correctly, but you might be saying that by respecting boundaries men make themselves unsexy, which curtails women's ability to say yes.

If a man respects a woman's actual boundaries, that's highly unlikely to be unsexy. The problem is that a man doesn't know where her actual boundaries are, at least not early on. Here's a concrete example of some women's potential preferences and boundaries around a kiss at the end of a date:

• Sally prefers men to ask explicitly before kissing her
• Jane prefers men to kiss her nonverbally, but to look for confirmation that she is moving in for a kiss
• Roxanne prefers that men just kiss her without asking, or looking for nonverbal confirmation

Now, imagine that you are a man going on date. The problem is that you don't know whether you are dating Sally, Jane, or Roxanne. Well, you know the name of the person you are dating, but you don't know their preference set. You can guess, but it's, well... a guess. Early in dating, you don't know who the person in front of you truly is: you must aim your behavior towards a probability distribution of who that person might be.

Respecting Sally's boundaries isn't a turn-off if you are on a date with Sally. Sally won't be turned off by you asking for a kiss goodbye, but Jane and Roxanne will. In fact, they might find it unconfident, inept, or wimpy.

So, what should you do? With all the talk you've heard about vulnerability, people-pleasing, consent, etc... you might make the following conclusion (of course, I have no idea whether anyone would actually advocate such a conclusion):

It's more costly to a woman to attempt to kiss her without asking if she prefers being asked, than to fail to kiss a woman who wants you to kiss her without asking. You don't know which set of preferences she has. Therefore, as a precautionary principle (to use SarahC's term), you should treat all women as if they are Sally, and always ask.

This ethical argument is compelling, but it runs into major practical problems if women like Sally are in the minority.

I think that if this is what you're saying it's deeply incorrect; if men are making themselves unsexy, for whatever reason, that results in lost opportunities, but it's not actually curtailing anyone's ability to say yes that in fact wants to.

Ah, but whether someone someone wants to say "yes" can often depend on how the request was made. Making a request in an unsexy way makes it harder to say "yes" to. Getting concrete again, let's consider two ways of asking for a kiss goodnight at the end of a date:

• "May I please kiss you goodnight, if that's alright with you?"
• "Gimme a kiss goodnight..." or "Gimme a kiss goodnight?"

The second is probably harder to say "no" to. It induces more compliance, regardless of whether it is phrased as a question or an imperative. Yet the first way is probably harder to say "yes" to, for women who don't find that way of asking attractive.

It's also true that compliance tricks are used unconsciously. If this is the case (which it is) we should critically examine our "autopilot" modes of interaction to see where we are in fact using confidence tricks, so we can eliminate them where possible and appropriate. (It may not always be appropriate: society depends on a great deal of soft coercion.

That's correct. It's frustrating for me to watch people condemn PUAs for engaging in behavior that people in the mainstream do on autopilot. There should be more investigation into what sorts of social influence are ethical, but I am very pessimistic about getting mainstream people to disarm. A much more practical solution is to arm everyone with the tools to influence others, and resist influence. As you perceptively point out, even discussion of pickup is a step towards this goal.

Of course, I will suggest that there are plenty of commonly-used influence behaviors (including compliance-inducing ones) that would pass inspection. And I would question whether "soft coercion" always deserves to be called coercion.

But SarahC is correct to say that confidence is not the same thing as manipulation. A confident, high-affect, charismatic &c. person can sedulously respect boundaries.

Confidence isn't the same thing as manipulation, but there could be an overlap in the consequences. If our ethical principle is to avoid making advances that someone might unenthusiastically comply with, then avoiding confident behavior might well be better!

I'm sure that most people who advocate concern about female sexual vulnerability and people-pleasing don't want to imply that men have to relinquish confident behavior. But what exactly are the practical implications of that concern?

Perhaps we're running into a purely semantic confusion and what I label "respecting boundaries" is not actually the same thing as what you label "treating women like porcelain statues" - perhaps you could operationalize the latter?

I agree that these semantic questions are getting to the crux of this discussion.

A behavior that Sally might perceive as respectful of her boundaries (e.g. asking for a kiss) might leave Jane or Roxeanne feeling like you are treating her as a porcelain statue. Here are some other potential behaviors that lower the chances of unenthusiastic compliance:

• Making advances only by tentatively asking questions in the interrogative tense
• Never engaging in touch that the other person hasn't given explicit verbal consent to (including hugs, touches on the arm to emphasize a point, holding hands)
• Never making any sexual advances at all that haven't been explicitly invited
• Never making any requests at all, including requests for consent

I hypothesize that many women will find these sorts of inhibitions to result in stilted and unattractive behavior that makes them feel treated like porcelain statues (or conclude that the guy is wimpy, unconfident, or unperceptive of her nonverbal signals). Yet such behaviors do maximize the ease of women saying "no." So why shouldn't men be good little consequentialists and act like this? What percentage of women actually find such behavior attractive in men they are dating?