I was browsing PsychologyToday.com and came across this fascinating article where the writer interviews a self proclaimed "PUA Chaser". This woman, Clarisse Thorn, immersed herself in the PUA culture and learned a lot about how it all works. This was interesting to me because for a while now here at the DJ forums I've been reading about how this PUA stuff is going main stream, and this article really highlights that. While reading I was surprised to come across many of the same terms I'm sure we're all familiar with such as "AFC", "One-itis" and many more. Though her research also deals a lot with S&M and it's peculiarities, most of the rest of it was eye opening and interesting simply because I've always wondered how women feel about this stuff.
I posted the first page of the article here in this post... if you'd like to read more of it the link to the second page and beyond is posted at the bottom. I encourage anyone who enjoys this first page to finish the rest and see what conclusions you come to. I wanted to post this here so you guys could provide your own feedback and/or form your own thoughts on Clarisse Thorns methods.
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I'm fascinated by subcultures. Last year, while I was doing research for an
article about narcissists ("How to Spot a Narcissist"), I got a chance to witness a particularly fascinating subculture-- the world of "pickup artists". I attended a weekend long summit, where a variety of "coaches" gave their advice to a group of "frustrated" guys on how to approach and attract women. While there was definitely some sexist advice, many of the coaches actually made some pretty insightful observations about social interactions, consistent with the latest research in social and evolutionary psychology.
One night, I went out with them after a day of talks and watched their training in action. Each coach worked with a few "students", and throughout the night they encouraged their students (sometimes quite forcefully, I'd say) to approach women and then they gave their students feedback on their interactions. They even put an earpiece on some guys and told them what to say in the moment to help them ease their anxiety. It was truly fascinating, if not sometimes just plain surreal to watch. While I could see some of the guys become less anxious about approaching women by the end of the night, I'd say for many of them, their main issue appeared to be social anxiety in general, not specifically with women. But still, this sort of encouragement from other guys seemed to help them with their general social anxiety talking to strangers.
Looks like I'm not the only one intrigued by this subculture. In his bestselling 2005 book, The Game, rock journalist Neil Strauss wrote about his experiences with the pickup artist community. More recently, feminist S & M writer Clarisse Thorn entered their world and wrote about her experiences in her book Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser.
I found her book to be insightful, thoughtful, engaging, and very well-balanced. She talks about all sides of the community, the positive, negative, and horrendous, and she draws larger lessons about society and human nature. These topics are relevant to Clarisse's work, as she has delivered sexuality workshops and lectures to universities and museums across the USA, and her writings have appeared all over the internet, from The Guardian to Jezebel.
Clarisse was cool enough to answer some of my questions.
SCOTT: On your website you identify yourself as a “feminist, pro-**** sex-positive activist”. There’s a lot to unpack there. How do you define each of those elements (feminist, pro-****, sex-positive activist)?
CLARISSE: I like to use bell hooks' definition of feminism, which is "a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression." But feminism is a diverse movement with many different strands. Sex-positive feminism arose from a desire to talk about sexuality in a positive way, and to honor consensual sexual expression, while acknowledging feminist critiques. As a sex-positive activist, I try to raise awareness of how sexuality can be wonderful and different for different people; I also try to help people understand themselves, and to help them make choices that avoid sex that's not good for them.
**** is a 6-for-4 deal of an acronym that stands for Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submission, Sadism and Masochism. It's sometimes referred to as S&M, B&D, leather, or fetish. I personally feel S&M deeply as part of my sexual identity, so I write a lot about S&M. In particular, I write frequently about the intersections of S&M theory and feminist theory.
SCOTT: What is a pickup artist (PUA)?
CLARISSE: The pickup artist subculture is an incredible amalgam of online discussions plus books plus conventions plus instructors selling personalized "coaching" plus competing "schools" of seduction. The overall goal is to help men sleep with women, but in practice, there's a lot of general self-help and relationship advice too. I'm obviously fascinated by gender issues, sexuality, and masculinity; PUAs are a weird intersection of those three topics.
SCOTT: What kinds of guys seek out PUA advice?
CLARISSE: In my book I offer a "Taxonomy of Pickup Artists," in which I boil down a few different motivations for why guys get into the subculture, and offer six "types" of PUAs. (I might make trading cards, too!) Some guys are so shy, anxious, or socially inept that they legitimately don't know how to approach women. Others are hedonists who just want to have fun; still others are misogynist predators who enjoy finding ways to take advantage of women. A few PUAs are analytical people like myself, who obsessively seek to understand sex and gender and human interaction. And some are in it because they see an opportunity for profit.
Personally, I relate best to the guys who look into pickup artistry because they're socially inept or obsessively analytical, because I am both of those things. I'm kind of awkward, and I never stop thinking about culture and social norms. I met some guys in the subculture who I now count as my friends.
SCOTT: Do you like the phrase “average frustrated chump”? Personally, I think it’s bullying when PUAs use that phrase to describe socially awkward people who may have approach anxiety. To me, it comes across as a way for “master” PUAs to distance themselves from their former selves. What do you think?
CLARISSE: A lot of PUAs feel the need to look down on men who aren't in the community, or who don't get laid much. I'm sure it's partly to convince themselves that they've learned something of value from pickup artistry, but it's probably also a classic response to bullying: they've been bullied themselves, so they buy into the hierarchy that hurt them because they can't let go of their pain. They have to justify their own hurt feelings, and they have to believe that they were bullied for a reason.
SCOTT: Do you think some women are more susceptible to PUA tactics than others?
CLARISSE: There are so many "PUA tactics" that this is impossible to answer. Which tactics do you mean? Also: what counts as a "tactic," and what counts as a framework or a way of thinking? PUAs talk a lot about developing good social "calibration" -- in other words, they want to learn how to read social situations without any verbal questions. Is "calibration" a tactic, or is it a framework?
On the other hand, I'd say that a specific memorized pickup line definitely counts as a tactic. Yet pickup lines depend so much on delivery and calibration that many experienced PUAs eschew memorized lines entirely.
I do think that most PUA frameworks are designed for certain subcultures that are very status-based and appearance-based, like nightclubs. Mystery, a famous PUA who established a lot of the current subculture's approaches, developed his Mystery Method based on experience in the mainstream clubs of Los Angeles -- and it shows. I suspect that Mystery can pick up girls wherever he goes, but I think that a dude who only ever picks up girls in mainstream LA nightclubs might have some trouble shifting gears if he tries to pick up an introverted PhD student at a World of Warcraft convention. That said, I do think that many basic principles of "the game" are generally valid, and a smart charismatic dude from LA will figure out how to work the WoW convention pretty fast.
Page 2
Thanks for reading.
I posted the first page of the article here in this post... if you'd like to read more of it the link to the second page and beyond is posted at the bottom. I encourage anyone who enjoys this first page to finish the rest and see what conclusions you come to. I wanted to post this here so you guys could provide your own feedback and/or form your own thoughts on Clarisse Thorns methods.
____________________________________________________________
I'm fascinated by subcultures. Last year, while I was doing research for an
article about narcissists ("How to Spot a Narcissist"), I got a chance to witness a particularly fascinating subculture-- the world of "pickup artists". I attended a weekend long summit, where a variety of "coaches" gave their advice to a group of "frustrated" guys on how to approach and attract women. While there was definitely some sexist advice, many of the coaches actually made some pretty insightful observations about social interactions, consistent with the latest research in social and evolutionary psychology.
One night, I went out with them after a day of talks and watched their training in action. Each coach worked with a few "students", and throughout the night they encouraged their students (sometimes quite forcefully, I'd say) to approach women and then they gave their students feedback on their interactions. They even put an earpiece on some guys and told them what to say in the moment to help them ease their anxiety. It was truly fascinating, if not sometimes just plain surreal to watch. While I could see some of the guys become less anxious about approaching women by the end of the night, I'd say for many of them, their main issue appeared to be social anxiety in general, not specifically with women. But still, this sort of encouragement from other guys seemed to help them with their general social anxiety talking to strangers.
Looks like I'm not the only one intrigued by this subculture. In his bestselling 2005 book, The Game, rock journalist Neil Strauss wrote about his experiences with the pickup artist community. More recently, feminist S & M writer Clarisse Thorn entered their world and wrote about her experiences in her book Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser.
I found her book to be insightful, thoughtful, engaging, and very well-balanced. She talks about all sides of the community, the positive, negative, and horrendous, and she draws larger lessons about society and human nature. These topics are relevant to Clarisse's work, as she has delivered sexuality workshops and lectures to universities and museums across the USA, and her writings have appeared all over the internet, from The Guardian to Jezebel.
Clarisse was cool enough to answer some of my questions.
SCOTT: On your website you identify yourself as a “feminist, pro-**** sex-positive activist”. There’s a lot to unpack there. How do you define each of those elements (feminist, pro-****, sex-positive activist)?
CLARISSE: I like to use bell hooks' definition of feminism, which is "a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression." But feminism is a diverse movement with many different strands. Sex-positive feminism arose from a desire to talk about sexuality in a positive way, and to honor consensual sexual expression, while acknowledging feminist critiques. As a sex-positive activist, I try to raise awareness of how sexuality can be wonderful and different for different people; I also try to help people understand themselves, and to help them make choices that avoid sex that's not good for them.
**** is a 6-for-4 deal of an acronym that stands for Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submission, Sadism and Masochism. It's sometimes referred to as S&M, B&D, leather, or fetish. I personally feel S&M deeply as part of my sexual identity, so I write a lot about S&M. In particular, I write frequently about the intersections of S&M theory and feminist theory.
SCOTT: What is a pickup artist (PUA)?
CLARISSE: The pickup artist subculture is an incredible amalgam of online discussions plus books plus conventions plus instructors selling personalized "coaching" plus competing "schools" of seduction. The overall goal is to help men sleep with women, but in practice, there's a lot of general self-help and relationship advice too. I'm obviously fascinated by gender issues, sexuality, and masculinity; PUAs are a weird intersection of those three topics.
SCOTT: What kinds of guys seek out PUA advice?
CLARISSE: In my book I offer a "Taxonomy of Pickup Artists," in which I boil down a few different motivations for why guys get into the subculture, and offer six "types" of PUAs. (I might make trading cards, too!) Some guys are so shy, anxious, or socially inept that they legitimately don't know how to approach women. Others are hedonists who just want to have fun; still others are misogynist predators who enjoy finding ways to take advantage of women. A few PUAs are analytical people like myself, who obsessively seek to understand sex and gender and human interaction. And some are in it because they see an opportunity for profit.
Personally, I relate best to the guys who look into pickup artistry because they're socially inept or obsessively analytical, because I am both of those things. I'm kind of awkward, and I never stop thinking about culture and social norms. I met some guys in the subculture who I now count as my friends.
SCOTT: Do you like the phrase “average frustrated chump”? Personally, I think it’s bullying when PUAs use that phrase to describe socially awkward people who may have approach anxiety. To me, it comes across as a way for “master” PUAs to distance themselves from their former selves. What do you think?
CLARISSE: A lot of PUAs feel the need to look down on men who aren't in the community, or who don't get laid much. I'm sure it's partly to convince themselves that they've learned something of value from pickup artistry, but it's probably also a classic response to bullying: they've been bullied themselves, so they buy into the hierarchy that hurt them because they can't let go of their pain. They have to justify their own hurt feelings, and they have to believe that they were bullied for a reason.
SCOTT: Do you think some women are more susceptible to PUA tactics than others?
CLARISSE: There are so many "PUA tactics" that this is impossible to answer. Which tactics do you mean? Also: what counts as a "tactic," and what counts as a framework or a way of thinking? PUAs talk a lot about developing good social "calibration" -- in other words, they want to learn how to read social situations without any verbal questions. Is "calibration" a tactic, or is it a framework?
On the other hand, I'd say that a specific memorized pickup line definitely counts as a tactic. Yet pickup lines depend so much on delivery and calibration that many experienced PUAs eschew memorized lines entirely.
I do think that most PUA frameworks are designed for certain subcultures that are very status-based and appearance-based, like nightclubs. Mystery, a famous PUA who established a lot of the current subculture's approaches, developed his Mystery Method based on experience in the mainstream clubs of Los Angeles -- and it shows. I suspect that Mystery can pick up girls wherever he goes, but I think that a dude who only ever picks up girls in mainstream LA nightclubs might have some trouble shifting gears if he tries to pick up an introverted PhD student at a World of Warcraft convention. That said, I do think that many basic principles of "the game" are generally valid, and a smart charismatic dude from LA will figure out how to work the WoW convention pretty fast.
Page 2
Thanks for reading.
Well, that's me out.