I've actually been discussing pickup on LessWrong for a while. I've been attempting to de-jargonize it, and translate the language into terms that are less likely to offend people. The result is a lot of dry and verbose comments in dark corners of other threads. Here is a haphazardly-organized index of my comments that either discuss pickup, or discuss related issues about ethics or personal development:

• Pickup and rationality: naive realism and the availability heuristic in pickup, rationalist practices in pickup communities

• Female preferences, and PUA models thereof: priors when approaching women the need for impersonal initial heuristics and stereotypes in social and sexual interaction, PUA vs. feminist views of women's preferences, flaws in the standard PUA model of women, how PUAs observe gender-typical women, and how they fail to model gender-atypical women, while gender-atypical women fail to understand gender-typical women that PUAs are modeling, greater female selectivity about behavior, creating models of human interaction from anecdotal data

• Sexual ethics: manipulation, questions to ask about whether sexual influence is ethical, buyer's remorse, "duping" wom

Do Not Want.

Everything you say in the proposed post may be factually true to within individual variance. AND YET: just posting on and discussing this topic on LW communicates a certain message -- whether you like it or not and no matter how vigorously you disclaim it. That message is that the typical reader of LW is 20-34 and heterosexual and single and male and we prefer it that way, and if you do not fit that demographic then you may very well find that conversations here may well revolve around strategizing for how to manipulate you into doing things that, in a more reflective state, you would much prefer not to do.

Nobody is going to write the gay male or lesbian or women-seducing-men version of this post, because of the skewed demographics of this website. There's little point in pretending that LW would be an equally welcoming forum for those hypothetical posts.

I hate to see probably my single favorite current contributor to LW take such an (I believe unintentionally) offensive step. Furthermore, does it become a person who by his own admission is extremely interested in ethics (granted, metaethics, but still) to post a topic whose ethical status is very dubious and simply... (read more)

I am a straight female. I would like to see this subject discussed, for various reasons:

• It doesn't strike me as unethical in and of itself, as long as people don't misuse it. I doubt it would be extensively misused.

• It could help other people, and I wish them well.

• I am curious about the subject matter.

• I could use some help with my general social skills; this could be useful.

• I'd like to see a similar article for women.

• I dislike censorship, including self-censorship, and think all nearly all topics should be freely discussed.

In sum, I wouldn't be driven away by PUA discussion, and I'd like to see it on here, aimed at both genders (unfortunately, I'm a major nerd who can't write the women-attracting-men post).

That's just my two cents, and I'm fine with it if the majority would rather not.

I notice that I'm confused.

If (as is being claimed) the principles underlying PUA are useful for becoming the best man you can be and succeeding in all areas of life, and discussing those principles is beneficial for those reasons, and (as is also being claimed) signaling alliance with PUA alienates women and nonheterosexual men and is bad for the community for those reasons, it seems to follow that it's a good idea to do the former without doing the latter: for example, to talk about the underlying principles as they apply to "holistic self-improvement" and "improv[ing] social relations in general" rather than as they apply to sexual attraction.

But instead I'm seeing people who endorse the first claim respond to the second claim by dropping the subject altogether.

That would make sense if it turns out that there isn't a post's worth of stuff that comes out of PUA research that isn't about sexual attraction. But that would be evidence against the claim that PUA research is useful outside of that area, and I'm not seeing people updating on that either.

I tentatively conclude that the discussion has been more of a set piece than an actual exchange of positions. Which is sort of a pity, if true, though understandable.

It is a controversial topic, already considered taboo here by many people, and would offend a lot of people.

But I would like very much to read it. And I am offended by people who try to prevent people from saying things that offend them. So you have to offend somebody!

I don't care if people are turned away by it. We've gotta have one place that is pure, where people can speak truth and be as politically incorrect and offensive as they dare, and not make reason bend over backwards in the name of popularity. And this is that place.

I will say, though, that I've read/heard/watched/tried a lot of material over the past 4 years by DeAngelo, Style, Mystery, Lance Mason, etc.; and none of it has ever helped me one bit. I think that most of it works for a certain personality-type of guy, which I am not, on a certain personality-type of woman, who don't like guys like me. The branches of the PUA industry descended from Copeland, DeAngelo, and Mystery (we need a phylogenetic tree here) are focused on picking up the type of shallow, party-girl, bitchy woman that is not interested in intellectuals. I bore them, and they bore me. IMHO "cocky comedy" backfires on a large percent... (read more)

I would like to address the perception that pickup excludes people other than single heterosexual males. Although single heterosexual males dominate the seduction community in its current form, certain ideas and ways of thinking are catching on for other gender combinations, even though they aren't yet very well developed.

There are female PUAs. Here is an excellent FAQ from the Playettes forum of mASF. It's way better than anything in The Rules or Cosmo.

There are also numerous blogs written by women who have been influenced by pickup, such as Dolly, the NY sex blogger who ended up meeting PUAs and eventually speaking at a pickup convention:

http://cocksanddolls.blogspot.com/2006/01/playing-with-player.html http://cocksanddolls.blogspot.com/2006/02/sarging-friday-night-part-ii.html http://cocksanddolls.blogspot.com/2006/07/cliffs-notes-part-ii.html http://cocksanddolls.blogspot.com/2006/07/cliffs-notes-part-iii.html

Male-male seduction? Some quick Google searching found gay forums using seduction community terms. And of course, gay male culture has pickup and cruising scenes that predate the modern seduction community.

As for female-female pickup, I don't know much, but we recently had... (read more)

A front page post on PUA would not jibe well with the previously-articulated goal of attracting more women to this community, and might drive some of the existing ones away.

I used to be one of those poor guys who complained that "Girls say they want nice guys, but they only go out with jerks!"

In women-dominated communities, it is a truism that this sort of statement is generally uttered by guys who are jerks but don't realize it. These men are referred to as Nice Guys(TM), a mocking designation that distinguishes them from actual nice guys, who we like. Here are a few blog posts breaking down the definition. See also http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Nice_guy_syndrome for a summary of views on this phenomenon from female perspectives.

A post that claims to explain why women only go out with jerks is therefore very liable to be extremely alienating to most female readers, especially when the answer turns out to be "because evolution."

I do see the wisdom the caution on your side and that of the commenter on having material specifically tooled to one demographic with little hope for later expansion.

But.

I would still very much like to see an article of this kind (a rationalist approach to pickup) somewhere. I doubt very much that the PUA community is a very rational one. Yes they do have a strong culture of empiricism "the game is played on the field" but the community does have its glaring blind spots (mostly shameless selfpromotion) as well as seems particularly vulnerable t... (read more)

...you know what I want to see now? A post for the rational fashion of finding other people who are attracted to the same sex. I have never read any advice on this regard (nor do I have any experience in this regard), and societal signalling is really sketchy in this area.

I'm a male who falls explicitly in a PUA thread's target demographic. I don't think PUA is an inherently bad idea. I think there's a lot of good, worthwhile information to be learned that isn't necessarily sexist. I would like to be in a relationship but suck at avoiding the friend zone. I'd prefer a PUA discussion in an environment where the premier focus is on rationality rather than sex.

I still think this is a bad idea. For a lot of reasons. But the number one is:

As much as I'd like to improve my own abilities to get women to see me as a relationship pr... (read more)

I thought it was the long-held consensus that PUA was dark-arts, possible mind-killer, potentially off-putting and off-topic. Suggestion to lukeprog is to use his (awesome) powers of research to pull up the old posts in which this consensus was reached before proceeding. I've had enough whiskey to prevent me from doing so.

I think it's quite possible that, as other people suggest, this will put off many people from LW. However, as a heterosexual male in a LTR, I am still interested in this topic. From what I gather, much of the usefulness of the PUA literature is about understanding what is (statistically speaking) sexually appealing to women. I want to be maximally appealing to my partner, and it seems like the PUA literature might help with that.

Perhaps we can have small discussion level posts ?