# Good incels vs bad incels

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [June 29, 2022, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114 "2022-06-29T14:23:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 173

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### Author: ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2022, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/173 "2022-07-11T15:54:15Z")

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> [@Esprise\_Me](#):
>
> OK but you know that the PUA community is largely about manipulating women into sex they don’t want to have? I guess if it were about self-improvement, even on a superficial level (get in shape, get a better job, learn to dress better, etc. in order to get women to like you) I could agree that it has some slight edge over the useless and toxic incel whining. But that’s not what it is.

There’s [a thread in Cafe Society](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-the-pick-up-artist-movement-so-popular-in-the-mid-2000s-to-2010s/966401) discussing the PUA phenomenon specifically.

As I have said there, when I got into that PUA stuff in the early days, at that time it **was** purely self-improvement advice. And, since there were many women and gay men doing the course, wasn’t focused on women but general attraction.

It could be that the movement became more toxic after I stopped following it. e.g. I never saw the VH-1 show. I’m skeptical though that women can be “bamboozled” into sex with manipulative words.

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