Assortative Mating Upheld, Film At Eleven
Irradiated by LabRat
Pickup Artist tactics work… on women who are either explicitly just looking for casual sex themselves, or else hold misogynist attitudes themselves. In other words, PUAs and men with similar attitudes about how men, women, and dating and mating work are mating with women who agree with them that that’s the way the world works- everyone within that world is playing “the Game”, or as I put it earlier, living on Planet Zongo. Or, to put it more generally, people date other people who share their worldviews, consciously or unconsciously, even if those worldviews are shitty and they think they’d like to live somewhere nicer.
This is essentially a “researchers set out to prove rigorously what should be a fairly easy intuitive conclusion” story, and one which I applaud, but there’s not a whole lot to add to “researchers find PUAs, targets are the same species with a shared mating dance” thing. I do have two points to add, though.
1. In my experience, misogynistic attitudes often go hand in glove with misandric attitudes if you look at them long enough. Thinking of men as demented feral dogs who’ll do anything to mate isn’t exactly a flattering attitude about them any more than thinking of women as Gatekeepers of Pussy just waiting for someone “alpha” enough is. Another way you could put the mindset of these women is “looking for the best out of really low expectations”.
2. Related to 1, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the same weren’t true of women who more blatantly think very little of the opposite sex, i.e. those that things like “men are so stupid, women have to save them” images in advertising are aimed at. Because the human race loves its confirmation biases, they are finding men who agree that they are stupid and self-centered by nature (and why would you work to change something like that if you thought that was just the way the world worked?), and act it. Either way I think these studies would have benefited tremendously by polling its subjects on negative attitudes toward men as well as women.
We don’t find it surprising and controversial when we self-sort our lives and experiences into smaller circles, with more even worldviews created by a sort of community conformity. Geeks run with geeks, people of like political stripe tend to congregate, subcultures are a fact of life. Why then should it be surprising when “manipulative sexist” turns out to be its own, populated by both sexes just as the rest are even if they’ve drawn a chalk line down the middle, rather than The Nature Of Men and Women?
August 26th, 2011 at 7:21 pm
As someone whose interactions with the opposite sex have involved only the “strange” wimminz, I’m prolly not qualified to comment here, but in the tradition of my serial bloviating, I’ll not let that stop me.
The general run of Wimminz these days seem to me to be a disappointing bunch, compared to my Mom and other women of her generation. (She was born in 1922.) She was good at stuff, including being the first woman to hold the position of Secretary to the President of the Mississippi Division of the GM&O Railroad,while also being a Babe. (I’ve seen her high school yearbook picture.)
She dated a bunch of fighter pilots (she specialized in the Dutch East Indies Air Force) but married the steady guy who was my Dad.
August 27th, 2011 at 9:17 am
There’s a big difference between men and women when it comes to casual, no-strings-attached sex. Just about any woman under age 60 who wants casual sex can get it right away. All she has to do is go to a bar or nightclub and approach men, there’ll certainly be enough horny men for her to get her wish. I’m not saying of course that most women would ever do such a thing, the point is that it *can* be done.
Men have no such option. A man who’s eager for casual sex can troll the bars and nightclubs too, but there’s no guarantee he’ll find a receptive woman no matter how low his standards may be. The only way a man can have guaranteed sex is to pay for it, which obviously is expensive, illegal and potentially dangerous.
August 27th, 2011 at 10:51 am
JtG: Perhaps someday you will find a woman who finds men in general to be disappointing as compared to her father. I cannot say with confidence it would be a happy match, but it would indeed be a match.
Peter: Men also have an option women don’t, which is to have casual sex with just-whoever and not fear winding up as a torso in their freezer in the morning. I realize there’s a difference there, but when actual digging into *why* most women do not do this has been done, perception of possible threat has been a bigger motivation against doing so than anything else.
August 27th, 2011 at 11:31 am
LabRat is right. I’m just speaking from anecdata here, but I’d be much more interested in casual sex with strange men if I were less worried that the strange man could overpower me and kidnap/rape/assault/murder/whatever me. As it is, people who want to have casual sex with me have to be friends with me first so I’m less worried they’re serial killers and so my friends will know who to point the FBI to if I die.
My anecdotal experience also supports the assortative mating theory far better than the hypergamy theory.
August 27th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Rat:
While the dangers of casual-pickup sex indeed are greater for women, they aren’t nonexistent for men … a man may not likely become the victim of a female serial killer, but he has to worry about false rape blackmail and child support traps,* in particular.
* = he tosses the used condom in the bathroom trash rather than flushing it, the woman then goes into the bathroom “to clean up,” guess what happens with his hapless wadd?
August 27th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Peter: My point was not “OMG things are so much worse for women”, it was that women can’t actually have NSA sex whenever they want in the real world.
Sex isn’t an on-demand entitlement.
August 27th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
It isn’t that women are actually at so much greater risk than men with pickups (the risk is greater, but not stupendously so); it’s mainly that they percieve themselves to be at so much greater risk than men.
If men knew the risks they’d probably not try it either.
(Oh, and pouring semen into your vagina from a used condom is not an ideal means of conception. Even one unprotected sex act, with guaranteed fresh sperm, has a pretty low chance of conception. What do you think the chances are with a chances with half an ejaculate that’s been in a warm garbage can all night? And that’s even before you get into aiming.)
August 28th, 2011 at 7:25 am
Well, let me start by stating the obvious: the whole PUA thing is a reactionary response by men to the perception that modern Western civilization is generally, and unfairly, tilted in favor of women. In issues of paternity, divorce, child custody, sexual assault, physical abuse, sexual harassment, etc. the courts and the law unfairly favors women. Pop culture and the media are unfairly biased in favor of women. The educational system is unfairly biased in favor of young girls and women. Hiring practices are unfairly biased in favor of women; as are workplace regulations. Divorce laws alone are so bad that a man would make a better investment of his personal resources just going out once every five years, finding a woman he can’t stand and buying her a house…. but if he acts to protect himself by getting a prenup, he’s “untrusting” and “suspicious” and you don’t really love meeeee, waaaaaahhh…
The typical, relatively decent and sane man will respond to this situation by simply refusing to play the game at all, and not dating or marrying. They may still have to deal with the legalized misandry in the schools, workplace and popular media, but at least they won’t be taken to the cleaners in a divorce hearing or end up raising someone else’s kid in a paternity suit. The ones who get into the whole PUA thing are the bitter remainder who decided that since they’re screwed if they do, and screwed if they don’t, they might as well screw as much as they can while it’s there for the taking….
August 28th, 2011 at 11:25 am
Just once I’d like to see any post anywhere on the web that mentions either pick-up crap or the basic fact of biology that it’s a lot easier for a man to kill or beat the shit out of a woman than vice versa without every goddamn crybaby that speaks English coming out of of the woodwork with the overwrought wailing and gnashing of teeth of “NUH-UHHHH! WOMEN OPPRESS MEN LOOK AT THESE HORRIBLE BUT NON FATAL THINGS”
Just fucking stop it you whining shits.
August 28th, 2011 at 11:57 pm
Jesus christ, where do all these people come from?
August 29th, 2011 at 8:45 am
Amen, Stingray.
August 29th, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Or, to put it more generally, people date other people who share their worldviews, consciously or unconsciously, even if those worldviews are shitty and they think they’d like to live somewhere nicer.
This is a nice way of putting it.
I find the concept of Game very offensive, albeit realistic for a large number of women. Thankfully, I married someone who also finds Game offensive and for whom its tactics would probably be unsuccessful. I married someone with more or less my worldview. That’s probably why we’re still married.
August 29th, 2011 at 6:06 pm
Just once I’d like to see any post anywhere on the web that mentions either pick-up crap or the basic fact of biology that it’s a lot easier for a man to kill or beat the shit out of a woman than vice versa without every goddamn crybaby that speaks English coming out of of the woodwork with the overwrought wailing and gnashing of teeth of “NUH-UHHHH! WOMEN OPPRESS MEN LOOK AT THESE HORRIBLE BUT NON FATAL THINGS”
That “basic fact of biology” is largely meaningless in modern civilized society. Yes, it is easier for a man to kill or injure a woman than vice-versa, at least if weapons are left out of the equation, but so what? 99.9% of men aren’t going to do such a thing, so it doesn’t matter.
August 29th, 2011 at 6:12 pm
You’re an idiot and you should stop talking. 99.999% of women aren’t going to save a used rubber in an attempt to get knocked up and hold the guy over a barrel either, but there you were going on as if it was right up there with stubbed toes in terms of real world danger.
Quit whining, crybaby.
August 29th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Plus the part where “it doesn’t matter” is bullshit.
Shall we do rape, too?
August 29th, 2011 at 7:12 pm
The only thing I can see from those linked charts is that a woman’s chances of being murdered by an “intimate” are extremely low, higher than a man’s chances but still so low as to be all but irrelevant. People love to exaggerate minimal risks. This is yet another example.
By the way, I would imagine that most of the women murdered by husbands/boyfriends are in the lower reaches of the underclass, and/or heavily involved with drugs or alcohol.
August 29th, 2011 at 7:40 pm
Again, this is coming from the guy who was fearing for the helpless, vulnerable semen of a man who had casual sex?
You said the capacity of men to be violent toward women doesn’t matter. I brought up one category of violence in which there’s a huge gender disparity between victimizers and victims, out of many possible- if you want a complete breakdown there’s this much more detailed report with far more categories of crime.
You can dismiss it all you want, but it’s still a rational enough concern to make the prospect of making even the most cursory talk-long-enough for coffee screen of a casual sex partner a good idea- and I know quite a few women who say a lot of guys will bolt when asked for even that little bit of prior interaction before sex.
So far you’ve asserted women enjoy some sort of advantage over men because they can supposedly get sex on demand- except they don’t, because there’s enough of a chance they’ll be hurt, raped, or killed to make them more cautious.
Then you compared the risks a man faces from casual sex, which included an example that occurs in the handfuls rather than the thousands per year that intimate partner homicide does, or the hundreds of thousands that rape does.
Then you said that the size/strength capacity a man presents over a woman “doesn’t matter” because it’s only those hundreds of thousands- millions if we want to get frisky and include assaults, after having made the assertion above.
You have run into your bullshit artistry limit here. Either argue honestly and with a consistent standard, or GTFO my comment section.
August 30th, 2011 at 4:14 am
Peter,
“he tosses the used condom in the bathroom trash rather than flushing it, the woman then goes into the bathroom “to clean up,” guess what happens with his hapless wadd?”
Oh, and then he wakes up in a bathtub full of ice water, and his lower back is sore, and there’s a note that reads…
Seriously, dude, do you ‘But what about the menz?’ types sit around concocting these potential nightmare scenarios like teenagers telling ghost stories at a slumber party or what?
August 30th, 2011 at 8:22 am
Women can, if they are willing to run the risk. The scarcity of sex for a large minority of men is such that more men than women are willing to run the risks, also there seems be evo-psych biological evidence (as well as certainly socialization) for greater risk-taking in men, particularly when sex is at stake.
PUA can’t decide what it wants to do about women’s safety, since it includes a great emphasis on making her feel safe but also many schools of PUA handle last minute objections to sex with a “agree verbally with her objections but continue escalating sexual touch to more sensitive areas, continue removing clothing” approach. It’s still trying too hard and still treating women as means to an end.
August 30th, 2011 at 9:04 am
I sort of felt like LabRat and Stingray had this under control, but no one’s called you on a point that I have a serious problem with. The broadly cited statistic is that about one in five to one in four women will be raped during their lifetime; I’d venture to guess that the percentage for sexual assault is much higher. This statistic is pretty heavily supported by survey evidence from establishments such as NIH, NIAAA, and RAINN. Anecdotally, as someone who knows a hell of a lot of women, I’d venture to say the percentage here is actually higher. Not everyone reports.
So, let’s be generous and REALLY lowball it - 25% of the female population will be sexually assaulted through their lifetime. And you’re claiming 99.9% of men are nice boys who wouldn’t never hurt a woman? Your stats don’t add up, and indeed, they’re supported by hard evidence to the contrary. In surveys, about 20% of men admit to having committed some form of sexual assault, and somewhere between 5 and 10 percent admit to rape. (Let me spell that out for you: this is a voluntary answer, meaning that the actual percentages on those numbers may be higher.)
Let me put this in a way you might understand: if you knew you had a 25% chance over your lifetime of having a heart attack, I’d bet a significant amount of money that you’d change your diet and exercise patterns.
August 30th, 2011 at 11:10 am
Its silly to claim that only misogynists using ‘dating tactics’ hook up with only insecure women that want casual sex. You’re neglecting the evolutionary aspect of the behaviors in question as well as the universality of the success of these same ‘dating tactics’ when applied to the general female population. Though not some sort of master pua by any means, I can attest to the fact that ‘tactics’ - be they negs, openers, dhvs, etc - work equally as well with intelligent successful women as with those on the opposite extreme. This may be anecdotal evidence, but evidence it is. Furthermore, to claim that only misogynists would use ‘tactics’ at all is pretty silly and suggests that the writer has been spurned in his advances and now believes (erroneously) that its only the jerks, and not ‘nice guys’ such as himself, that women are attracted to. Healthy, normal, relationships can be started by using ‘tactics’ just as easily as misogynistic and co-dependent ones.
August 30th, 2011 at 11:19 am
About the capacity for violence, gender disparity, and dominance: men and women ARE different. This includes physical strength and the ability to commit violence (though don’t forget that women are often drafted as snipers in places like Chechnya because they have fewer qualms about killing). Yes - men are on average stronger. So what? It is a simple and unequivocal fact that women are attracted to dominant males. How the dominance is displayed can vary - one man may take over the first violin position in the orchestra while another may beat up competing suitors, but dominance is always in play. Dominance doesn’t have to mean physical subjugation of the woman, but without some sort of dominant behavior a man will not succeed when up against other suitors, as we all are if we live in cities with a large selection of potential mates nearby. Yes - some men will use force to get their way and no-one condones this behavior as it is actually evidence of psychological problems on his part. The last piece to the puzzle is that if you ask a woman her opinion on this NOTHING she says can be used as evidence for or against as she will only be replying from her rational brain, not the emotional brain that actually plays the dominant role (no pun intended) in choosing a mate. Effectively we have to discount EVERYTHING women say and look ONLY at their actions. Their actions tell the whole story….. Don’t look at the expressed opinions of feminists when analyzing how we pick our mates - men in our society grow up brainwashed-enough about this subject!
August 30th, 2011 at 11:27 am
John Farrier: to say that ‘while Gaming works for most women, my honey is different!’ is simply denial. 10% of kids in the world grow up with illegitimate fathers. 100% of married women, when posed the question ‘would you seek pleasure if you were 100% assured it wouldn’t affect your permanent relationship?’ answered in the affirmative. You are simply setting yourself up for cuckolding another man’s child and are in denial about how the relationship game works.
RHJunior: the modern Euro/American society attempts to feminize the boys and results in the metrosexual man (an oxymoron). just because girls oooh and ahhh about you getting a mani-pedi doesn’t make you more manly or dominant or attractive to them. To be a man is no longer what it was for hundreds of generations - to protect one’s family, raise children, and create wealth for the next generation. The ‘men’ are marching with feminists, playing Wii and PS3, watching sports, etc. ‘The Game’ is a sane way of NOT playing the game that society makes most men play - want a good mate? buy a nicer car! buy a new watch! buy a nice condo! buy a nice bike! buy her dinner! buy her diamonds! please her and she may grant you her favors! That’s the game that we avoid playing by learning ‘tactics’, at least the realists among us.
August 30th, 2011 at 11:50 am
Sam,
You realize that all you fuckers sound alike, and that your glassy-eyed fervor and steady stream of jargon-laden bullshit makes you sound like a bunch of Scientologists or Amway members to normal folks, right?
August 30th, 2011 at 11:56 am
PS: “Furthermore, to claim that only misogynists would use ‘tactics’ at all is pretty silly and suggests that the writer has been spurned in his advances…”
New here, aren’t you?
August 30th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Tam: Every. Single. Fucking. Time. this topic comes up, it never takes more than about three comments before this is the only thing I hear in my head when I try to read the whining crap from these mouth-breathing fuckskids that seem to have flipped the relative importance of “sex” and “oxygen” in the hierarchy of needs and how to go about acquiring it.
Even worse, that eurosaba dingleberry is worse than fucking Candlejack when someone says “PUA.”
August 30th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Stingray - thanks for the link to the vid. I hadn’t seen the show, but that’s an excellent way to describe the reaction I was having!
That was the oddest bit of cognitive dissonance I’ve had yet this week, seeing “Peter” commenting before realizing that it wasn’t the one we know crafting a careful Poe’s law parody, but someone else actually meaning what he says. It worked better as a parody.
Like attracts like makes sense, too, when it comes to the dearth of any of these “Pick Up Artists” around here. As I’ve not seen one in the flesh, I was dismissing the phenomenon as another overblown internet fad. However, if they’re looking for manipulative sexists, it makes sense I wouldn’t find them on the range, at the farm, at the airports from Alaska to Tennessee, or in the company of gentlemen and ladies I know.
August 31st, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Candlejack? I’m a rank amateur compared to a hard-core boogeyman like h