It seems there's some interest in PUA and attraction at Less Wrong. Would that subject be appropriate for a front-page post? I've drafted the opening of what I had in mind, below. Let me know what you think, and whether I should write the full post.
Also, I've done lots of collaborative writing before, with much success (two examples). I would welcome input from or collaboration with others who have some experience and skill in the attraction arts. If you're one of those people, send me a message! Even if you just want to comment on early drafts or contribute a few thoughts.
I should probably clarify my concept of attraction and seduction. The founders of "pickup" basically saw it as advice on "how to trick women into bed", but I see it as a series of methods for "How to become the best man you can be, which will help you succeed in all areas of life, and also make you attractive to women." Ross Jeffries used neuro-linguistic programming and hypnosis, and Mystery literally used magic tricks to get women to sleep with him. My own sympathies lie with methods advocated by groups like Art of Charm, who focus less on tricks and routines and more on holistic self-improvement.
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EDIT: That didn't take long. Though I share much of PhilGoetz's attitude, I've decided I will not write this post, for the reasons articulated here, here, here and here.
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Here was the proposed post...
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When I interviewed to be a contestant on VH1's The Pick-Up Artist, they asked me to list my skills. Among them, I listed "rational thinking."
"How do you think rational thinking will help you with the skills of attraction?" they asked.
I paused, then answered: "Rational thinking tells me that attraction is a thoroughly non-rational process."
A major theme at Less Wrong is "How to win at life with rationality." Today, I want to talk about how to win in your sex life with rationality.a
I didn't get the part on the VH1 show, but no matter: studying and practicing pick-up has transformed my life more than almost anything else, even though getting excellent and frequent sex is, oddly enough, not one of my life's priorities. Nor is finding a soulmate.
If you want lots of sex, or a soulmate, or you want to improve your current relationship, then attraction skills will help with that. Loneliness need not be one of the costs of rationality. But even if you don't want any of those things, studying attraction methods can (1) clear up confusion and frustration about the opposite sex,b (2) improve your social relations in general, (3) boost your confidence, and thus (4) help you succeed in almost every part of your life.
This is a post about what men can do to build attraction in women.c I will not discuss whether these methods are moral. I will not discuss whether these methods are more or less "manipulative" than the standard female methods for attracting men. Instead, I will focus on factual claims about what tends to create sexual attraction in women.
This is also a post for rationalists. More specifically, it is aimed at the average Less Wrong reader: a 20-34 year old, high-IQ, single male atheist.
I will also be assuming the stereotype that many passionate rationalists of our type could benefit from advice on body language, voice tone, social skills, and attire - a stereotype that has some merit. Even if you don't need such advice, many others will benefit from it. I did.
As is my style, I'll begin with a survey of the scientific data on the subject.
Self-help methods in general have not received enough attention from experimental researchers, and attraction methods have fared even worse. That may be what drove the leaders of the pickup community to run thousands of real-life experiments, systematically varying their attire, body language, and speech to measure what worked and what didn't. The dearth of research on the subject turned ordinary men into amateur seduction scientists, albeit without much training.
Still, we can learn some things about sexual attraction from established science.
[full post to be continued here]
a I've also given two humorous speeches on this subject: How to Seduce Women with Body Language and How to Seduce Women with Vocal Tonality.
b 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!" Merely reading enough evolutionary psychology to understand why women often date "jerks" was enough, in my case, to relieve a lot of confusion and frustration. Even without developing attraction skills, mere understanding can, I think, relieve serious stress and worries about one's manly (fragile) ego.
c Sorry, I don't know much about homosexual attraction, and I'll leave the subject of how women can attract better men to other authors.
Why does a self-improvement article aimed at 20-34 heterosexual single males communicate that we prefer such a membership at LessWrong? Is it because of the particular subject of pickup?
I think it's a good thing that lukeprog has the humility to avoid overgeneralizing his advice to other populations.
Your reaction presupposes a certain view of sexual and social ethics. Your characterization of pickup as "manipulating women into doing things that in a more reflective state, they would much prefer not to do" is loaded:
"Manipulation" is thrown around a lot, yet in a recent discussion I noted that nobody had given any concrete examples of "manipulation," or made attempts to demarcate it from ethical behavior (though at least the difficulty of doing so was acknowledged). As I remarked in that post, "manipulation" does point to a meaningful and valid objection. Yet if that objection isn't articulated, then we risk the category of manipulation creeping until it also encompasses forms of social skills that should be regarded as ethical.
Moral false-positives (failing to recognize an unethical behavior as unethical) are probably more costly than false-negatives (failing to recognize an ethical behavior as ethical). But moral false-negatives are costly, too.
As for "reflective states" and sexuality: do PUAs deprive women of reflection over sex any more that people typically having sex in our culture deprive each of reflection by arousing each other in the process of moving towards sex? How much of women being sexual with PUAs is explained by a lack of reflection that the PUA somehow induced?
What exactly is the appropriate amount of reflection prior to sex? At what point does concern over your partner's decision process become paternalism? How much do different sorts of women want to reflect about sex in order to feel comfortable? Should men treat women like experienced chess players treat beginning chess players, with a constant litany of "are you sure you want to do that?" Is more reflection over sex always better? If so, then we could see conversations like this:
"Hey, baby... I know you're all over me and probably want to get to it... but you know what? I really don't think you've sufficiently reflected on the consequences of us having sex. You just think you want to have sex in the moment, but your decision process is biased because you've been led through a series of emotional states thanks to my seductive studliness. I'd like you to take a couple days, get a piece of paper, and write down the pros of us having sex on side, and the cons on the other. Then we will hang out, and I will act as unattractive as possible for an hour, because attractive behavior could bias you. This will help you make an objective decision about whether we should have sex or not. Now put your pants back on."
Why shouldn't we conduct sex with such procedures? These are exactly the sorts of questions and calculations about sexual ethics that LW could discuss; they aren't discussed anywhere else.
Just like with the notion of "manipulation," the notion of "reflective states" around sex is championed by very good people with very good intentions... and it certainly points to something meaningful. In a culture that often fails to value sexual consent, an emphasis on consent and ethics is a laudable contrarian position. I think that this laudable contrarian position needs balance from a meta-contrarian position explaining where certain ethical principles (e.g. avoiding whatever "manipulation" is, encouraging reflection over consent) stop. Knowing where ethical principles start is important. But it's also important to know where those principles end, or else we will see "ethics creep" that frightens scrupulous people out of social and sexual behavior that should be considered moral and healthy.
Inability to combat ethics creep is a common failure mode of intelligent, ethical people attempting to improve themselves socially. They think that they are being saintly for abstaining from certain behavior, but a more careful ethical analysis would reveal that they are just handicapping themselves for no good reason.
Perhaps lukeprog holds the view of many PUAs that pickup is a set of morally neutral "tools," and these tool can be used for good or evil. Although I believe that most pickup techniques are morally neutral or positive, such a view presupposes a certain view of ethics, some pickup techniques are far more conducive to having a negative impact on people than others. Furthermore, even discussing the viability of a particular technique could locate it as potentially ethical. I think it's reasonable to want to lukeprog to "show his work" on why we can have a morally neutral discussion of pickup, before he attempts to do so.
Yet I would like to point out that the sexual ethics surrounding pickup have actually already been discussed a lot on LW, in the corners of various threads, so it's not like lukeprog is trying to start a discussion of pickup prior to any discussion of its ethics on LW.
If pickup was discussed in top level posts on LW, perhaps it would be best to invite ethical discussion, or even have the post discuss sexual ethics. Another option would be to pick one specific idea from pickup that might be minimally ethically controversial.
What exactly disgusts you? Feel free to not answer that, but I'm curious. As far as I can tell, people find pickup disgusting due to some of following factors:
Any more?