# Is the "pick up artist" movement an inherently good or bad thing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 23, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932 "2018-04-23T20:52:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/41 "2018-04-23T23:35:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Wait, wait. Serious question here. Having one-night stands with a succession of women is not, perhaps, the noblest goal to have in life or the most productive way to spend one’s time. But: > > 1. Why is it “stupid”? > > 2. Why is it “misogynistic”? Serious question. **Why is womanizing “misogynistic”?** (Bear in mind that not everything feminists dislike is therefore “misogynistic.” In fact, not everything practically all **women** dislike is therefore “misogynistic.”) I was referring to the underlying principle that women are a bunch of idiots who can easily be manipulated into sleeping with you if you just employ some simple tricks. Sleeping around is morally neutral. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/42 "2018-04-23T23:38:05Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > First of all, okay, it may be “hard” to teach, but that’s not the same thing as impossible. Second, how do you think guys develop this swagger? Do you think it’s just in their DNA? No. They learn it by observing people around them, whether that means real people that they know, or celebrities, musicians or actors that they watch from a distance. Yeah, maybe they do it over time, starting from childhood, but it’s still a learning process. And a good teacher can show someone how to do it late in life. I think it might partly be genes, yeah. A lot of our temperament is what we’re born with and that can influence how people treat us and the kinds of experiences we choose, which in turn also influences personality. Someone born extroverted may choose to go to more social situations and thus learn more social cues than a shyer individual. I think it’s a little too simple to say that it’s just all observed–there’s a lot of environment/genetic interaction in almost all aspects of our development. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/43 "2018-04-23T23:40:20Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I was referring to the underlying principle that women are a bunch of idiots who can easily be manipulated into sleeping with you if you just employ some simple tricks. Sleeping around is morally neutral. No, that’s just assuming that **women** are **people.** I mean, if the tricks in question were gender-neutral and directed to some non-sexual end – aren’t there kits and kits of time-tested effective tricks for, for example, persuading strangers to give you money? There are kits of tricks for beggars, and tricks for grifters, and tricks for salesmen and tricks for fundraisers. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/44 "2018-04-23T23:45:17Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Why would “players” who had some sort of winning “technique” want others to use it? If the “technique” becomes generally known, would this not decrease its usefulness? 😃 Because when your sexual needs are satisfied, the next thing you want is money? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Duality](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.duality/32/4098_2.png) [@Mr.Duality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Duality)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/45 "2018-04-23T23:47:06Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I don’t think the dropout rate at boot camp is very high. I think it’s around 10 percent. I call that a very low proportion when you consider how rigorous it is. My boot camp platoon started with 212. We finished with 98. ---
**Author:** ![Jaledin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/46 "2018-04-23T23:47:22Z")
> [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > you can use PUA techniques to find a relationship, too. He parlayed his PUA skills to sell policies (and has been our star salesman for many moons now). The PUA is not inherently bad or good - it depends on how you use it. I think that’s the key – some people need a formula to relate to others. I think I and other reasonably personable people can attest that it takes some practice to get good at playing the game; it makes my skin crawl that my fellow humans – and fellow women – are thinking of the opposite sex as game. I don’t give a hang about what anybody else thinks, but this board is populating a whole new generation of douches who will probably hang out where I do, and that dog don’t hunt. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/47 "2018-04-23T23:51:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, that’s just assuming that **women** are **people.** I mean, if the tricks in question were gender-neutral and directed to some non-sexual end – aren’t there kits and kits of time-tested effective tricks for, for example, persuading strangers to give you money? There are kits of tricks for beggars, and tricks for grifters, and tricks for salesmen and tricks for fundraisers. That’s true, yes. Some people are gullible and stupid, and exploiting that is nothing new. I’m not sure the pick up artist movement makes any distinctions to that effect [“By the way, my tricks are guaranteed only to work on women with poor judgment”], but I admit I’m not going to go find out. And maybe manipulating someone into sex is worse than manipulating them into buying a set of cheap knives, but that may be an old fashioned attitude. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/48 "2018-04-23T23:53:27Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I don’t want to sidetrack this too much, but why do you think that people need to let their age dictate what they should and shouldn’t do? Why should anyone decide to just become a different person because they are 40 or 50 instead of 20? Don’t you think that a man might spend his old age fucking lots of women because he _wants_ to and finds it rewarding? Why is it OK for someone to do this when he’s 20, but not OK when he is older? If you are perfectly happy in your state of arrested development, that’s no skin off my back. But the vast majority of people do eventually mature and want to experience other things besides instant gratification. If you are pretty sure that you will never settle down, go ahead and be a pick up artist all your life. But if you think you might want more in your life, you have to keep up the skills that will enable you to have that. Believe me, I know how it goes. I’m a 30 year old fun-loving independent woman, and I would love to spend another decade or so screwing around having fun. But if I do want to get married and have kids one day, it’s going to be time for me to start thinking seriously pretty soon. Guys have a longer timeframe, but they are also capable of putting off forming mature relationships until it stops being an option. I know A LOT of people who moved to Asia to become sex tourists. All the young ones feel like they’ve won the lottery, but few of the older ones are happy people. I spent a lot of my time hearing my 45 year old friends bitch about how whiney, immature, boring, sexually repressed and uncommitted their girlfriends were. I’m like “Yeah, that’s because your girlfriend is 17 years old! What did you think you were getting when you wanted to date kids?” Unfortunately by that point all they have no real career skills and nothing to attract a woman on equal terms, so they are pretty much stuck with what they have. Like I said, have fun with it, but have an exit plan. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/49 "2018-04-23T23:59:57Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Some time ago I read the book _The Game_ by Neill Strauss. He talks about how he dramatically improved his “game” skills by learning from other guys. He gives a laundry list of girls he slept with after building up his skills. Do you think he’s just lying? It’s the safe bet. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/50 "2018-04-24T00:13:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Because when your sexual needs are satisfied, the next thing you want is money? The need for money, I’ll grant. 😃 Selling people supposed secrets to obtaining sex or love is as old as the hills, though. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/51 "2018-04-24T00:21:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, that’s just assuming that **women** are **people.** I mean, if the tricks in question were gender-neutral and directed to some non-sexual end – aren’t there kits and kits of time-tested effective tricks for, for example, persuading strangers to give you money? There are kits of tricks for beggars, and tricks for grifters, and tricks for salesmen and tricks for fundraisers. I think what skeeves people out about this stuff is that it sounds a lot like ‘tricks for grifters’. That is, the 'tude seems to be that the opposite sex are basically marks to be fooled. Seems difficult to imagine much good comming from that, even assuming that the ‘techniques’ work (as opposed to - that the guy laying out cash for the ‘techniques’ is the real ‘mark’, which seems reasonably likely). ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/52 "2018-04-24T00:28:25Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > First of all, okay, it may be “hard” to teach, but that’s not the same thing as impossible. Second, how do you think guys develop this swagger? Do you think it’s just in their DNA? No. They learn it by observing people around them, whether that means real people that they know, or celebrities, musicians or actors that they watch from a distance. Yeah, maybe they do it over time, starting from childhood, but it’s still a learning process. And a good teacher can show someone how to do it late in life. > > You think no guy has ever been laid by imitating James Dean? Sean Connery? Snoop Dogg? > > All behavior begins as mimicry. I shouldn’t have said, “impossible” I should have said, “hard enough to teach that anyone peddling it will ting my scam-o-meter.” If you take someone who mimics a cool cat in order to learn how to be a cool cat, you end up with a pathetic corn ball, 9 times out of 10. Anyone with the ‘cool cat’ gene isn’t likely to be the type of cornball to learn pick-up artists methods online. Every time I hear about people being judged by their looks, on this board and elsewhere, I always wonder why people put so much stock into looks, when it is clear that ‘swagger’ is what really counts\*. I have known both women and men who are not lookers in the traditional sense but can absolutely \*break your heart \*with that vague, intangible, ethereal…thang that they got. \*there is a limit to this, of course. If one is \*extremely \*overweight or deformed or grotesque looking, no amount of swagger is going to make up for that, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/53 "2018-04-24T00:43:10Z")
I think you’re making a mistake in assuming that _all_ of these pick-up artists are pushing “swagger” or the same kind of “swagger,” or that they believe that the _only_ way to get a lot of women to sleep with you is by using “swagger.” And lots of people in this thread seem to be massively making the mistake of assuming that the entire “game” scene is one big for-profit scheme. Roissy doesn’t make any money from his site. And really…you think every single one of these guys talking about how this or that “game” technique got them laid, online, in blog comments and the blogs themselves, is just sitting around fabricating completely fictional scenarios and typing them up to feel good about themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/54 "2018-04-24T00:49:28Z")
No, I don’t think they are pushing ‘swagger’. I think ‘swagger’ is what makes a pick-up artist successful. Can’t bottle that. So they bottle a bunch of stuff that they do. The problem is, swagger isn’t what you do. It’s who you are. I’m tired of saying the word ‘swagger’. It’s a word that is trendy in hip hop circles right now, and I never liked it. Like I said, we called it ‘steez’ or ‘steelo’ when I was younger, but these damn kids today have to go changing up the slang. Doesn’t matter. The point is the same. ETA: I’m thinking about how I can explain better. It is kinda like people who fake confidence. You know how they always come off kind of phoney? You can’t fake confidence or even arrogance. I mean, you can, I guess, but again…I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/55 "2018-04-24T00:51:36Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > . Roissy doesn’t make any money from his site. And he also dosen’t get laid NEARLY as much as you seem to think he does. Look at Charlie Sheen, famous, good-looking, rich-as-fuck, yet he still seems to have to pay for most of the action he is getting (porn-stars, escorts, strippers) and there are many, many other famous, wealthy, good looking men who are also paying (one way or another) for the majority of the sex the have too. If you could see an average month in Roissy’s life, I bet you would be surprised at how many nights he goes home alone, and also by the average caliber of attractiveness (specifically the lack thereof) of the women he does actually hook up with. If one is not picky about sexual partners, it’s not terribly difficult to rack up big numbers of “conquests”. Supermodels are NOT lining up and taking numbers to bang this guy. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/56 "2018-04-24T00:56:07Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > \*there is a limit to this, of course. If one is \*extremely \*overweight or deformed or grotesque looking, no amount of swagger is going to make up for that, I guess. Hey, that’s “stagger”, not “swagger”. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/57 "2018-04-24T01:08:48Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > Look at Charlie Sheen, famous, good-looking, rich-as-fuck, yet he still seems to have to pay for most of the action he is getting (porn-stars, escorts, strippers) and there are many, many other famous, wealthy, good looking men who are also paying (one way or another) for the majority of the sex the have too. Didn’t Sheen once say that he doesn’t pay women to have sex with them, he pays them to leave afterwards? **Nzinga,** maybe you can’t fake confidence, but you can _develop_ confidence. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/58 "2018-04-24T01:16:22Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > If one is not picky about sexual partners, it’s not terribly difficult to rack up big numbers of “conquests”. OK, sure. But you have to realize there are lots of guys out there who don’t know how to pick up _anyone._ There are guys out there who have never even been laid. Look at our own **mookieblaylock.** Being able to rack up lots of encounters with just-average women would be a huge, _huge_ step up for these guys, in terms of satisfaction and self-confidence, I believe. These are the men who would benefit most from learning some “game,” it seems. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/59 "2018-04-24T01:22:30Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Didn’t Sheen once say that he doesn’t pay women to have sex with them, he pays them to leave afterwards? > > **Nzinga,** maybe you can’t fake confidence, but you can _develop_ confidence. Yeah, but developing confidence is a long process. It comes from accomplishment and hard work and reflection and introspection and charity and humble pie and so on and so forth. In other words, it doesn’t come from doing a series of tasks that imitate someone _else’s_ confidence. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932/60 "2018-04-24T01:25:51Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > OK, sure. But you have to realize there are lots of guys out there who don’t know how to pick up _anyone._ There are guys out there who have never even been laid. Look at our own **mookieblaylock.** Being able to rack up lots of encounters with just-average women would be a huge, _huge_ step up for these guys, in terms of satisfaction and self-confidence, I believe. These are the men who would benefit most from learning some “game,” it seems. The problems some guys seem to have appear to stem from a more basic source - lack of social skills generally, excessive introversion, depression. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pick-up-artist-movement-an-inherently-good-or-bad-thing/572932.md?page=4)