[LINK] Ethical Pick-Up Artistry (Clarisse Thorn)

KenChen

Clarisse Thorn recently posted a useful article about Ethical Pick-Up Artistry, bringing up a few basic critiques of traditional PUA and suggesting a few alternatives.

Here’s the thing: the current pickup artist subculture has a monopoly on effective advice for how to break down social interactions and talk to women. Not all of it works, but enough of it works that it draws guys in. As a pickup artist instructor once told me, “When I first found the community I was horrified by how sleazy and gross it is, but I had never had a girlfriend and I told myself: dude, if you don’t learn this stuff you’re gonna die alone.”

I’ve theorized that maybe feminists should provide good pickup advice, in an attempt to counterbalance some of the awfulness of the existing community. In the meantime, however, I figure the next best thing to do is to provide a list of less-misogynistic pickup artist instructors and sites, and a few very basic critiques.

~~A proposal to formalize this~~ Not the same thing, but a discussion on forming a community to practice social artistry in general has been brought up on LW before, but I'm not personally aware of anything coming out of that.

Clarisse Thorn recently posted a useful article about Ethical Pick-Up Artistry, bringing up a few basic critiques of traditional PUA and suggesting a few alternatives.

Here’s the thing: the current pickup artist subculture has a monopoly on effective advice for how to break down social interactions and talk to women. Not all of it works, but enough of it works that it draws guys in. As a pickup artist instructor once told me, “When I first found the community I was horrified by how sleazy and gross it is, but I had never had a girlfriend and I told myself: dude, if you don’t learn this stuff you’re gonna die alone.”

I’ve theorized that maybe feminists should provide good pickup advice, in an attempt to counterbalance some of the awfulness of the existing community. In the meantime, however, I figure the next best thing to do is to provide a list of less-misogynistic pickup artist instructors and sites, and a few very basic critiques.

I mean, I understand that you're suggesting that men who don't use the approval of women as the core of their moral compass and the chief determinant of their behavior don't have any need for good pickup advice

Rather, the opening advice incidentally implies that they don't seek dating advice from a female authority figure that has selected and vetted subjected to her seal of approval.

"Mommy, how do I make girls like me?" just isn't a particularly good way to arrange the education of males and a feminist guide to dating for males is even more inappropriate. It makes so much more sense for 'feminism' to give advice for females. There isn't such an overwhelming conflict of interest with regards to agenda (which is not to say that the political agenda wouldn't interfere even with advice to females at times as well).

There isn't such an overwhelming conflict of interest with regards to agenda (which is not to say that the political agenda wouldn't interfere even with advice to females at times as well).

You would think that if feminism was about watching out for women's interests, it would also watch out for their heterosexual interests. Yet some feminists seem to view women's heterosexual interests as counter their political interests, when those women have preferences for traditional gender dynamics.

In some conversations with feminists about pickup techniques, I o... (read more)

4TheOtherDave15y

So, I can kind of get this to make sense if I assume that good pick-up advice acts against the best interests of women... which, now that I think about it, is consistent with your other comments on the subject. Sure, if that's true, and if feminists are interested in advancing the interests of women (which seems likely), then it follows that feminists giving pick-up advice is a conflict of interest, as you say. Of course, men who consider themselves pick-up artists giving pick-up advice is also a conflict of interest, in that they presumably consider themselves in competition with their advisees for resources. But perhaps, as you suggest, the conflict of interest in the second case is less overwhelming. And your equation of feminists with female authority figures suggests that you consider those sets entirely disjoint... that is, that there are no feminist men, at least not in this context. And if I additionally assume, as you seem to here, that I have to choose -- that is, that I can either learn from feminists, or learn from soi-disant PUAs, but I can't do both -- then it follows from all that that I should not seek out pick-up advice from feminists. OK, I think I understand. Thanks for the clarification.

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[LINK] Ethical Pick-Up Artistry (Clarisse Thorn)

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[LINK] Ethical Pick-Up Artistry (Clarisse Thorn)

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