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MASTER THESIS
Not MeToo: the seduction community’s nice
guys, bad apples, false allegations and anxiety
Mihaela Crăciun 11786884
Cultural Sociology Track
Supervisors:
dhr. dr. K. (Kobe) De Keere
dr. M.A. (Marguerite) van den Berg
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Table of contents
Abstract...4
Chapter 1: Introduction...5
Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework...10
2.1. Emotional landscapes and cultural incoherence ...10
2. 2Men’s rights movement and hybrid masculinities...11
2.3 Neoliberal logic and hegemonic masculinity in the SC...14
2.4 Sexual scripts and essentialism...15
2.5 Seduction and anxiety ...17
Chapter 3: Methodological Approach...20
3.1 Desk Research...20
3.2 Participants...21
3.3 Interviews Overview...22
3.4 Interpretive approach and positionality...24
3.5 Data analysis...25
Chapter 4: Findings...25
4.1 Concepts and lingo...26
4.2 Neoliberal, self-entrepreneurial framework...32
4.3 The “poor nice guy”: navigating anxiety and rejection...41
4.4 Not MeToo - it’s just the bad apples...48
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Chapter 5: Conclusion...58 Bibliography...62 Appendix...69
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Abstract
This paper explores the worldviews of the Dutch “seduction community” in an effort to understand how their inter-subjective frameworks relate to wider instances of inequality (Lamont et al, 2014). The seduction community is a transnational, self-help community aiming at empowering men who are “deficient” at social skills and particularly at successfully “picking up” women. The embodiment of masculinity is central to this rule-based, essentialist framing of sexuality and attraction in which men aim at instrumentally influencing sexual interactions in a quest to regain control and felt lost power over intimate relations (Schuurmans, 2017). Sexual success becomes a token of manhood that not only helps “socially awkward heterosexual men” (Denes 2011:414; Almog et al, 2015) climb up the social ladder of masculinities but also one that promises soothing of anxieties and mastering of emotions. Based on a desk research of “pickup” concepts and on qualitative interviews of the local seduction community’s members, this paper examines how members of the SC frame their involvement with pickup as well as broader issues of inequality such as sexual violence and the anti sexual harassment activism represented by MeToo. The paper argues that the community resorts to an intertwining of two complementary frameworks:
hegemonic masculinity versus victim power, emphasizing what scholars have called hybrid masculinity (Connell et al, 2005).
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Chapter 1: Introduction
The issue of sexual harassment and assault has made its way into the public sphere for a few years now in light of feminist activism (Gotell & Dutton, 2016). Yet it is the recent MeToo movement that has showcased the extent to which sexual harassment is a pervasive social matter. The name “Silence Breakers” (Zacharek et al, 2017) was given to the main figures associated to the MeToo movement, so as to imply the broken taboo around sexual harassment that up until recently was mainly kept a private matter. Issues such as low reporting rate of sexual assault, low conviction rates (Tempkin & Krahe, 2008), widespread sexual violence against women and a culture of victim blaming and stigmatization in which women are the “gatekeepers” of sexuality and thus responsible for transgressions have long been documented (Gottel & Dutton, 2016). The movement has gained considerable support and the amplitude of the stories comes to show the extent to which feminist legitimacy was gained. Contestation and backlash to the movement has not nevertheless failed to come. The MeToo hashtag was quickly followed by #NotAllMen (Emery, 2017), as reactionary to a perceived overly inflated critique to manhood. Initiatives such as “La lettre des cent femmes” have come to critique MeToo for Puritanism, for “hatred of men and of sexuality” (Nous
defendons, 2018). Postfeminist claims framing patriarchal structures and gender inequality as
a thing of the past (McRobbie, 2008) are not new and have been a matter of interest for many sociologists. Postfeminism has been related to processes of reconfiguration and negotiation of intimacy (Gill 2009) and even with the rise of antifeminist attitudes and of the men’s rights movement (Ging, 2017; O’Neill, 2015; Gottel & Dutton, 2016; Menzies, 2007). Researching on MeToo and anti-harassment feminism proves therefore to be of high relevance in terms of better grasping the movement’s advance as well as the backlash that feminism still has to navigate its way through. The widespread endorsement of the “real rape” myth (Temkin & Krahe, 2009:349) still carries important consequences that ultimately minimalize the seriousness of sexual assault and thus implicitly enables a system of sexual violence. While MeToo is not be taken as ultimate victory on otherwise structural matters of inequality and sexual violence (Davis &Zarkov, 2018), it does bring to the forefront a necessary debate on sexuality and sexual harassment issues.
Of particular relevance to reshaping of cultural norms of sexuality and consent as brought forward by the MeToo movement is the pick-up artist community, hereby called pickup community or seduction community – SC (O’Neill, 2015; Schuurmans, 2017). The
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SC’s main aim is to increase sexual choice and control for heterosexual men through specific knowledge acquisition, skill training and seduction practice – self proclaimed as “artistry” or “game” (O’Neill, 2015; Schuurmans & Monaghan, 2015). While main figures and popular “gurus” of the SC have oriented themselves towards more marketable identities such as “dating experts” or “lifestyle coaches” (O’Neill, 2015:8), thus diversifying the spectrum of memberships, for concision purposes we will refer to the entirety of materials, practices and followers identifying with this corpus under the sole name of SC or pickup community.
The SC professes self-help goals in helping men increase their erotic game, their heterosexual competences and sexual success with women, all within a re-enactment of hegemonic masculinity markers such as dominance and control (Almog et al, 2015; Schuurmans, 2017). The community targets men with low social skills (Denes, 2011; Almog et al, 2015) by putting forth a rule-based schemata of ideas, skills and seduction practices that would grant them success with women. Meticulous practice or “ascetic labor” (Schuurmans, 2017:69) is emphasized as only way to achieve success, in a paradoxical mixture of hedonistic goals and ascetic means (Hendricks, 2012). Originating from the US, this community has quickly spread into a global phenomenon that transcends its cyber dimension (Schuurmans, 2017). From online classes, blogs, forums where members exchange personal experiences with game, to offline seduction workshops, bootcamps or “in field” practice trainings, PU has gained many followers around the world. While its origins are traced back to the 70s and to figures such as Erik Weber’s “How to Pickup Girls” (Almog et al, 2015) , the SC has truly gained worldwide recognition after the bestselling success of the book “The
Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists” (Strauss, 2005), in which Strauss
describes the catchy story of his evolving from an AFC (average frustrated chump) into a PUA (master pickup artist).
While commercial in nature, this transnational community is considered part of the wider men’s rights movement (MRA), aligned with the central MRA philosophy: the popular Red Pill Philosophy1 aiming at liberating men from misandry and from the “feminist delusion” (Ging, 2017:1). The men’s rights movement or men’s rights activism (MRA) developed in the 1970s as an anti-feminist faction of the men’s liberation movement (Coston
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The Red Pill Philosophy originates from the /r/TheRedPill subreddit concentrated on antifeminism and rape culture defense issues. Now central to the MRA movement, it claims to enlighten men over feminism’s misandry and brainwashing (Ging, 2017) by resorting to a cultural analogy to the famous movie The Matrix.
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& Kimmel, 2013; Messner, 1998), touching upon issues such as father’s rights, domestic violence and recently, sexual violence as main topic (Gotell & Dutton, 2016). Also called “masculinism” or “masculinist movement” this antifeminist movement claims that men are hurt by the “feminization of society” (Blais & Dupuis-Deri, 2012:21). Feminism and its feminist agenda becomes the enemy harming men’s wellbeing and masculinity must be restored as main marker of self identity (Allan, 2016; Coston & Kimmel, 2013; Messner, 1998; Gotell & Dutton, 2016).
In alignment with the MRA rhetoric, the SC strongly resorts to evolutionary psychology theories and biological determinism ideas (Ging, 2017; Denes, 2011). The overall PUA community aligns itself with wider misogynist, anti feminist frameworks employed by the men’s rights movement. Among the main ideas building the MRA worldview we find: gender roles are inscribed in our biology and women are thus naturally irrational and submissive (Ging, 2017:12); rape culture is a feminist created “moral panic” supported by widespread false allegations and non scientific claims and statistics (Gotell & Dutton, 2016:65); rapists and ordinary men must be clearly distinguished and sexual violence must be addressed as gender neutral (Gotell, Dutton, 2016:66). At its turn, the MRA is also impacted by the SC. Originating from PUA, a uniquely misogynist and heterosexist lingo has spread throughout the entire MRA (Ging, 2017:12), with popular terms such as friendzoning, negging, shit testing, last minute resistance, going caveman, the bitch shield and many others.
With men’s movements playing an important role in the growing backlash against feminist anti-harassment movements (Gotell & Dutton, 2016), researching into how they frame the feminist anti-harassment movement and how they positions their self membership becomes therefore relevant both towards the social issue itself as well as towards the wider sociological field of inequality; particularly so as the SC is explicitly concerned with seduction and sexual interactions. As stated by Blais and Dupuis-Deri (2012:29), antifeminist backlash intensifies with a perceived increased loss, contestation or threat to male privilege. The men’s rights movement’s rhetoric therefore provides valuable insights into feminism’s advance and status (Menzies, 2007: 66). The MRA’s intensified discursive backlash on the topic of sexual violence stands as proof of social norms being reshaped by feminist activism; which with the rise of the MeToo movement becomes ever more salient. Yet such backlash needs not be merely disregarded as “extreme”. As previous research has theorized, the men’s rights movement rhetoric legitimizes its claims along the lines of a wider normative
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neoliberal, postfeminist discourse and thus has the potential of broadening its support (Menzies, 2007:71; O’Neill, 2015; Ging, 2017).
The PUA transnational industry is no novelty for the public sphere – its commercial success speaks for itself. Be it through its defining, bestseller book “The Game” (Strauss, 2005) sold in more than 2.5 million copies or the up to 3500 euros tickets for a bootcamp in Amsterdam with a worldwide renowned dating “guru”2, proof of PUA’s commercial success
and appeal is widespread. This strong commercial dimension makes the PUA subculture try to claim its own “entirety”, to set itself apart from other MRA factions or even align with more sophisticated names for marketing purposes – such as dating coach, lifestyle experts etc (Ging, 2017; O’Neill 2015). While controversies over sexual assault issues have recently put PUA back into the spotlight the seduction scene seems to be as appealing as ever. Among such controversies was that of the famous PUA instructor Julien Blanc who was banned from entering the UK and Australia (“Julien Blanc..”, 2014). Blanc is a famous controversial PU instructor behind the Real Social Dynamics (RSD) company who got banned from entering several countries in 2014 after his famous series of videos named #ChokingGirlsAroundtheWorld. His inciting to violence and sexual harassment is far from being subtle, with famous posts such as:“At least in Tokyo, if you're a white male, you can do
what you want. I'm just romping through the streets, just grabbing girls' heads, just like, head, pfft on the dick. Head on the dick, yelling, 'pikachu’”(Li, 2014). Blanc has nevertheless
“risen” from his own ashes by capitalizing on the controversy and using it as opportunity to become a spiritual teacher (alongside a dating coach). The Blanc controversy reached the Netherlands as well as Dutch right wing politician Thierry Baudet publicly took Blanc’s side (Terugkijken, 2014).
Recent literature on the SC has focused strongly on a content analysis of the PUA rhetorics (Ging, 2017; Denes, 2011; Almog et al, 2015); or on an ethnographic approach into members’ lived experiences with pickup, with its practices and its promoted ideals (O’Neill, 2015; Schuurmans & Monaghan 2015; Schuurmans, 2017), approach that nevertheless has not fully addressed how cultural accounts are related to inequality. This paper aims at enriching current research on the SC by looking into the local seduction community’s members’ moral position taking in terms of their own alignment with PU and of wider issues of inequality such as sexual harassment. While the online dimension of the SC is one of the
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main contributors to its widespread, transnational commercial success, we argue that the actual lived experiences and personal perspectives of its members is one that demands deeper investigation as it gives clearer insight into how the PU ideas and theories are translated into people’s worldviews and how they might ultimately relate to wider instances of inequality.
A qualitative methodological approach, enriched by a desk research into the community’s lingo, has enabled us to get a grasp of SC members’ frameworks, perspectives and emotional landscapes. Qualitative, in-depth interviews allowed us to “excavate” into different layers of cultural meanings and cultural incoherence which provide valuable insights into their “emotional landscape that brings a broader, social dimension to individual
motivation” (Pugh, 2013:43). Scholars have long noted the emotional impact on heterosexual
men as related to changing social norms around gender and sexuality (Allen 2003, 2007; Bridges 2014; Bridges et al, 2014; Montemurro et al, 2018; Cook 2006; Lamont 2015; Schuurmans et al, 2015; Schuurmans, 2017). In their research on the SC in California and Hong Kong, Schuurmans & Monaghan (2015:2) and Schuurmans (2017) emphasized how the quest to embody the Casanova myth within the SC is a double-edged one: it produces the same anxiety it claims to help alleviate. Becoming an Alpha is not without emotional turbulence within this standardized, rule-based vision of sexuality as something to be mastered, influenced and controlled by men through a process of impression management (Goffman, 1959) and dramaturgic performativity of hegemonic masculinity traits (Almog et al, 2015; Schuurmans, 2017). Building upon the work of O’Neill’s (2015), Almog & Kaplan (2015), Schuurmans & Monaghan (2015), Schuurmans (2017), we try to extend current research on the SC by addressing how members’ frameworks and emotional landscapes on sexuality relate to wider instances of inequality. My main research question is therefore:
How do members of the Dutch seduction community frame, understand and justify their own involvement within the community?
This main research question will be addressed by looking into the following subquestions: How do members of the Dutch seduction community rely on neoliberal
arguments to frame their membership? How do they employ emotional frameworks to position their experience with pickup? And lastly, How do members of the SC frame and position themselves on the recent MeToo movement?
The MeToo movement will be defined and operationalized as known societal debate on shifting sexual norms that would enable us to tap into our respondents’ moral positioning
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on matters of sexual violence and ultimately, inequality. In this sense, we argue that these inter-subjective frameworks, scripts and narratives contribute to wider cultural processes and to the reproduction of inequality (Lamont et al, 2014).
Chapter 2: Theoretical framework
2.1 Emotional landscapes and cultural incoherence
Cultural sociology has long been preoccupied with the role culture plays in motivating action. Culture as a “toolkit”, as a repertoire (Swidler, 2000) refers to culture being used to make sense of one’s action rather than as a causal, motivating factor. Actors are here portrayed to be hyper rational in their quest to justify and organize their lines of action and thus discursive, cultural incoherence is merely the result of an instrumental, non-internalized culture. In a quest to re-introduce internal, moral motivation, Vaisey (2008) proposes a “dual process” theory that would allow for both internal and external, conscious and unconscious levels of cognition. Specifically, culture holds both a motivational and a justificatory discursive dimension to it, all according to its level of internalization. Tapping into either can therefore be made through different methodological approaches aiming at mobilizing either the fast, powerful, unconscious, culturally causal “elephant” or the reflexive, discursive “rider”.
A departure from the influential cognitive culturalism of Vaisey is brought by Pugh (2013), whose theory underlies and supports our current research endeavour. Building up on Vaisey’s theory of a bifurcated consciousness, Pugh (2013) argues that cultural incoherence needs not be solved but rather integrated. If Vaisey claims that it is only through forced-choice surveys that one can tap into the “snap” judgements of people, into their deeper seated, moral motivations, Pugh argues that the “visceral” and the “honourable” levels of consciousness coexist and pierce through a person’s “contradictory cultural accounts” (Pugh, 2013:42). Honourable selves are here understood similarly to an impression management concept (Goffman, 1959) or to the effort to maintain an ethical persona (Hanna, 2014), while visceral selves speak of a deeper, individual moral and motivational dimension (Pugh, 2013).
In this sense, Pugh pleads for the value of in-depth, interpretive interviewing in accessing the visceral and the honourable self; the deep seated, emotional, moral motivation
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as well as the honourable, discursive justifications. In this study we will integrate Pugh’s theoretical and methodological approach that enabled us to tap into these cultural layers reflective of our respondents’ emotional landscapes. In this sense, “contradictions and
paradoxes are powerful tools for highlighting the emotionally charged – what is emotionally difficult to claim, where anxiety lies, and what sort of cultural problems people face for which they need to reach for such contradictory explanations” (Pugh, 2013: 48). This paper
will therefore rely on Pugh’s “emotional landscape” as encompassing term that underlies cultural incoherence, connects the different levels of consciousness and allows the understanding of “a broader, social dimension to individual motivation” (Pugh, 2013:43).
2.2 Men’s rights movement and hybrid masculinities
A first introduction to the PUA community refers to it having been theorized as part of the wider men’s rights movement. Increased technological affordances have enabled the rise of the men’s rights movement as a powerful transnational, online presence. The self-proclaimed “manosphere”3
represents the central cyber dimension for the men’s rights movement (Gotell & Dutton, 2016; Ging, 2017). According to Messner (2016:12) the emergence of the manosphere was related to the increase of the postfeminist discourse and to an overall rhetorical “decline of males” – but also to wider socio-economical processes such as neoliberalism and consumerist orientation (Ging, 2017; O’Neill, 2015). As Menzies puts it, the manosphere showcases “a truly remarkable gallery of antifeminist content” (Menzies 2007: 65). Here, feminism is portrayed as a mere tool to reinforce political correctness (Gotell & Dutton, 2016: 68), having therefore “‘gone too far’ and harmed men in profound
and fundamental ways’’ (Maddison 1999: 40). Restoring such harm made and bringing men
back in touch with their masculinity becomes a must.
The overall discourse of the MRA has mostly revolved around defensive, “reactive politics” to feminism (Allan, 2016:25). A previous longstanding focus on issues such as father’s rights or domestic violence (Gotell & Dutton, 2016; Dragiewicz, 2008), has morphed into a new field of interest: sexual violence issues. It is this recent focus on sexual violence, called the “anti‐anti‐rape backlash” (Bevaqua in Gottel & Dutton, 2016:68), that comes to mark a new territory of antifeminist backlash.
3 The term “manosphere” was mostly popularized by Ian Ironwood, author of “The Manosphere: A New
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The MRA’s discursive shifts concern both content but also its discursive tone, now strongly tilted towards the realm of emotion. The manosphere’s rhetoric shifts therefore from a predominantly political dimension into a space of cultural, “affectively charged” narratives (Papacharissi, 2014:2) or “affective utterances” (Allan, 2016:22). Gotell and Dutton (2016) have theorized that the movement’s previous engagement with tackling and influencing public policy, on issues such as father’s rights or domestic violence (Dragiewicz, 2008), has now softened into a more individual, emotional level playing up on “victim power” (Allan, 2016): men are also harmed, but this time by feminism. Messner (1998) demonstrates how men’s rights movement’s speech originates from an earlier men’s liberation focus on sex role theories. He shows how sex role discourse was progressively divorced from a critical acknowledgement of institutionalized inequality, with an increasingly conservative emphasis on male individualist hurt and symmetrical language (e.g, men are equally if not more harmed by sex roles). This has enabled the rise of the MRA’s new discursive strategy as a “beta uprising” (Ging 2017:3) of “aggrieved masculinities” (Kimmel, 2015), where the manosphere works as a collector and promoter of individual stories of misandristic hurt. As reaction to a stronger anti-rape feminism, the contemporary MRA movement showcases an increased focus on sexual violence issues, delivered in a discursive, “victim power” mode
(Gotell &Dutton, 2016). In their analysis of the MRA’s discourse on rape, Gotell and Dutton
define the movement’s new and increased focus on sexual violence as intent of “using the
issue of rape to mobilize young men and to exploit their anxieties about shifting consent standards and changing gender norms.”(Gotell & Dutton, 2016:65).
This discursive shift only comes to reiterate the importance of recent debates on hegemonic masculinity and of its necessary conceptual reformulation, debate which will stand at the core of this paper’s theoretical framework and research aim. The main reformulation of the concept is proposed by Connell and Messerschmidt’s thesis (2005) through which they aim at complicating previous narrow understandings of hegemonic masculinity. According to them, hegemonic masculinity can no longer be addressed as a mere cultural schema composed of stereotypical patterns of domination and masculinity. In short, hegemonic masculinity no longer simply reinforces hegemonic behaviours. Instead, masculinity should be understood as a way through which men position themselves alongside a spectrum of multiple meanings (Wetherell & Edley, 1999), as a strategic alignment with whatever discursive practices might ultimately grant external hegemony (Demetriou, 2001; Ging, 2017; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). The traditional hegemonic masculinity morphs
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from a fix set of characteristics into more fluid, strategically chosen practices, showcasing an ambivalence and even at times contradiction between alpha or beta masculinities – ambivalence visible within the men’s rights movement subfactions and their alternate uses of beta vs alpha identities (Ging, 2017). The “beta uprising” of young white males (Coston & Kimmel 2013, Kimmel 2015) and Connell & Messerschmidt’s (2005) hybrid masculinity comes to profoundly complicate the long line of research on hegemonic masculinity. It is within such “dialectical pragmatism” (Demetriou 2001:345) that masculinities are hybrid, constantly reconfiguring in an intricate, “interwoven pattern” striving for external hegemony and “work[ing] to conceal systems of power and inequality in historically new ways” (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014: 246).
MRA’s main legitimizing theoretical corpus of cherry-picked evolutionary psychology arguments and biological determinism (Ging, 2017; Messner, 1998) do not only inscribe traditional hegemonic masculinity as nature. The resort to such theories extends to emotionally arguing against the feminist agenda, to reinstating a “victim power” discourse legitimized through biology. The focus is on men’s personal stories of misandristic hurt that come as result of feminism’s distortion of natural laws. The discrediting of feminist empirical research and statistics (Gotell & Dutton, 2016) pinpoints to MRA’s effort at naturalizing structural instances of inequality by bringing the conversation unto the undeniable realm of affect (Allan, 2016). The main threat consists of feminism’s constructed
“moral panic” over “distorted” topics such as sexual violence or rape (Gottel & Dutton,
2016). Within the MRA discourse, gender differences are inscribed in our nature and the higher “order of things” (Bourdieu, 2001:8) needs to be reimposed and preserved against feminist efforts. We are reminded of Bourdieu’s symbolic violence (2001) as main mechanism of male domination. But if Bourdieu (2001) pleads for a de-essentialization of the congealed dynamics of gender inequality, his habitus theory can elude the potential of an actual strategic use of displays of affect and resort to undeniability of feelings (Papacharissi, 2014; Allan, 2016) as mean to ultimately grant hegemony. In Feminism’s Flip Side: A
Cultural History of the Pickup Artist, Andrew King (2018) argues that the evolution of the
PUA scene is related to feminism’s gender relativism and to the erasure within public debates of biology as factor of attraction. In stressing out how the media attention on PUA revolves mainly around controversial, extreme figures, while ignoring the complexities behind PU and behind heterosexual, biologically driven attraction, King speaks of a “moral panic” that the
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feminist agenda is trying to reinforce, thus legitimizing the MRA’s emotionally charged discourse.
2.3 Neoliberal logic and hegemonic masculinity in the SC
Recent ethnographic research on the seduction community highlights a “highly
rationalised form of eroticism” (O’Neill, 2015:8). Through ethnographic fieldwork, O’Neill
attempts at complicating the narrative reifying the PUA figure as a deviant one by arguing that “the underpinning logics of the seduction community are consistent with broader
reconfigurations of intimacy and subjectivity taking place within late capitalism” (O’Neill
2015:2). In line with a neoliberal logic of entrepreneurship and within a wider postfeminist social context, the SC’s rhetoric reproduces, according to O’Neill (2015), a stereotypical take on sex as something safeguarded by women and to which men must gain access to and control through strategic, “ascetic” labour (Schuurmans, 2017:69). Not only is sex here to be obtained from women as gatekeepers in what was called a “sex as conquest discourse” (Seal & Ehrhardt, 2003:296), but also won over other intensively competitive men (O’Neill, 2015:9). Scholars have theorized pickup to be a collective practice organized along the lines of both vertical and horizontal hierarchies (Schuurmans, 2017; O’Neill, 2015; Almog et al, 2015). The SC represents a “homosocial space of cooperation and competition” (Almog et al, 2015:15), in which men are both seen as “wingmen” – members collaborating during pickup, and competitors – the outsiders, the “naturals” at seducing women. Pickup is here comparable to competitive, hard labour sports practice and the sexual pursuit of women undergoes intense professionalization (Schuurmans, 2017; O’Neill, 2015). The means to achieve sexual success are encompassed within the embodiment of the ideal, dominating Alpha male figure.
If Ging (2017) identifies the “affectively charged” narratives as main standing point for the reconfiguration of hegemonic masculinities within the men’s rights movement subfactions, O’Neill (2015) comes to rather emphasize the neoliberal cultural logics of entrepreneurship that underlie the PUA scene and its marketing based endeavours. The seduction scene seems to be channelling a much more popular discourse of self-governance and entrepreneurship of intimacy and sexuality, where one must only work hard so as to achieve desired results (O’Neill, 2015; Schuurmans, 2017). Furthermore, the “general
commodification of sex” (Gilbert in O’Neil, 2015:7) as scripted within neoliberal culture is
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women’s bodies as not only marking status but providing actual exchange value (O’Neill, 2015:7). Trainers gain recognition by not only shareable knowledge but by proven, recorded success in their sexual encounters with women – sexual success with women being the main marker of not only “real” masculinity (Schuurmans, 2017; Schuurmans & Monaghan, 2015) but also of the community’s professional skills and market value. Filming and later screening of sexual encounters is often done by such trainers to showcase and establish legitimacy over self proclaimed knowledge. Women are not only objectified but become actual “object lessons” (O’Neill, 2015:8) with no say over issues of consent in being filmed or in later screening/publishing of such materials. Expertise and professional recognition is given to those PU instructors who not only prove extensive, accelerated game skills but also an impressive number of sexual conquests and sexual success with women holding high erotic capital (Schuurmans, 2017:79). In this sense, the community reasserts a gendered framework of sexuality in which men are naturally designed to be sexual predators and women are the “gatekeepers” responsible for hyper-vigilance and proscribed to passivity (Gotell & Dutton, 2016; Denes, 2011; Schuurmans, 2017; Almog et al, 2015).
2.4 Sexual scripts and essentialism
The SC defines sexuality upon essentialist grounds by resorting to evolutionary psychology theories and biological determinism (Ging, 2017; Denes, 2011; Almog et al, 2015). Essentialism here is to be understood as an immutable system that grounds gender and sexuality in the natural order of things; in short, “biology is sexual destiny” (Philaretou & Allen, 2001:302). Attraction can therefore be traced down to rules that are forged in by nature – men are naturally sexually driven and drawn to physically attractive women, while women look for social status markers that would showcase ability to provide for offsprings. In short, “alpha fux beta bux” (Ging, 2017): women look for alpha males for sex, inscribing hegemonic masculinity markers as biological and desirable. According to O’Neill (2015), Denes (2011), Almog et al (2015) seduction training promotes an understanding of intimacy and sexuality as procedural, rule-based schemata that can be produced on will by men and which ultimately eludes the dimension of mutuality and of female agency.
In an effort to understand the SC’s framework of sexuality, we introduce the concept of sexual scripts as prescribed guidelines for specific situations, operating on different levels: a wider, cultural scenario one as well as an interpersonal and intrapsychic level (Simon &
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Gagnon, 1984). Montemurro and Murphy’s research (2018) showcases that the traditional sexual script of male sexual assertion has been morphed into a rather hybrid masculinity (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005): younger men no longer subscribe to it as much. Sexual initiation is purposefully morphed into “waiting”, in an effort to avoid emasculation over possible rejection. This demonstrates important transitions in sexual scripts, as reflective of wider social change around gender and sexual norms (Montemurro & Murphy, 2018). According to Schuurmans (2017), the gains of second wave feminism in terms of lifting restrictions on female sexuality is one that paradoxically also brought along new challenges for men “who can no longer hide behind the adage that women
are sexually unavailable (Schuurmans, 2017:67). Sexual success with women is thus
reinforced within the SC as marker of hegemonic masculinity, as “means to do gender, to
signal a successful masculine identity” (Schuurmans, 2017:82). Sexual assertiveness,
dominance and initiating skills are here extensions of traditional norms of masculinity (Reid et al, 2011; Sakaluk et al. 2014). In this sexual script, women are the sexual gatekeepers, in charge of enabling sexual encounters as well as responsible for handling transgressions (Seal and Ehrhardt 2003; Masters, 2010; Reid et al, 2011; Sakaluk et al. 2014;).
According to Seal & Erhardt (2003), shifting sexual scripts can be a source of conflict and anxiety as men and women are faced with the challenge to create new sexual scripts while potentially sharing different expectations and different interpersonal and intrapsychic scripts. The complexities as well as the resistance to these social changes is revealed by the fact that the traditional sexual script of male sexual assertion is revived by and remains deeply inscribed within the PU community (Denes, 2011; Ging, 2017; Almog et al, 2015; Schuurmans et al, 2015). This extension of an otherwise traditional sexual script arguably plays and capitalizes upon the anxiety men might feel as result of such wider social changes. Within such ambivalence and anxiety, these sexual scripts come as relief, as providers of
“ways of knowing how to behave in sexually defined situations” (Ryan, 1988: 238). Yet this
same reinforcement of manhood and of traditional sexual scripts represents, according to Schuurmans, an ambivalent source of both aspiration and anxiety for members of the SC (Schuurmans & Monaghan, 2015; Schuurmans, 2017).
Biology as consent was problematized by Denes’ (2011) content analysis on the SC’s sexual scripts for seducing women. According to Denes, the essentialist approach to sexuality, central to seduction teachings and preached in one of PUA’s main text, The
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biological markers and reactions as truth (Denes, 2011:1). Women’s bodies are positioned against themselves as any other reaction than bodily ones is to be disconsidered. Essentially, the guide to a woman’s consent lies within her body and not within her verbal communication. A woman’s resistance to sexual interactions is commonly framed as token resistance, or in PUA lingo as “anti-slut defense” (Denes, 2011:416): women want to have sex but are scared of the stigma carried by sexual double standards. Essentialist scripts are meshed with restricted acknowledgements of cultural factors – the one cultural factor that is widely recognized by the SC yet specifically instrumentalized for own purposes concerns the restrictions of female sexuality. Pickup mastery becomes here the antidote to the crippling anxiety women have of being judged or seen as “sluts”. Female resistance to sexual interaction is framed as part of a common sexual script in which women are either “shit testing” (testing for Alpha traits in their male partner) or as “last minute resistance”, here a token of women’s fear of the double standard stigma (Schuurmans, 2017). In this essentialist framework, female sexuality is something uniform, predictable and controllable – by men; while female agency is removed (Denes, 2011:418).
While the community’s lack of acknowledgement of female agency raises important criticism of objectification, Hendricks (2012:9) complicates this critique by saying that “members of the Seduction Community not only objectify women, but also other men – and
[..] themselves”. By learning to look at both women and themselves as “biological machines”
(Hendricks, 2012:9), Hendricks argues that members of the SC end up ultra rationalizing social interactions, feeling lonely and disconnected from the social world outside of the SC. Essentialist scripting of gender and sexuality not only creates an “unrealistically high
standard of male sexual performance” (Philaretou & Allen, 2001:303) but also generates
along intense sexual anxiety for men pursuing this standard. This being said, recognizing how the essentialist script of sexual initiation extends the issue of sexual violence by “naturalizing” gender roles of “push” versus “resist” while strongly dismissing subjectivities and female agency remains critical, as Masters( 2010) argued.
2.5 Seduction and anxiety
With many scholars researching changing social norms and sexual scripts and their provoking of ambiguity and anxiety for heterosexual men (Montemurro & Murphy, 2018; Seal & Ehrhardt, 2003; Schuurmans & Monaghan, 2015), the emotional landscape of
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members of the SC becomes an important topic to address. Schuurmans & Monaghan (2015), Schuurmans (2017) come to extend O’Neill’s take on the SC’s neoliberal logic by emphasizing the emotionally stirring dimension it implies. According to Schuurmans, social changes such as decreased restrictions on female sexuality (Schuurmans, 2017:9) have brought about an important impact on intimate interactions. The rise of a hookup culture has concomitantly fuelled fantasies of sexual abundance, or the “myth of the pickup” (Grazian, 2007:226), yet Schuurmans’ findings reveal sexual adventurism and abundance as rather exceptional and resource-consuming (Schuurmans, 2017:9). In this sense, social changes have brought about specific challenges to young heterosexual men who now “can no longer
hide behind the adage that women are sexually unavailable” (Schuurmans, 2017:67); all the
while masculinity is strongly reinforced within the SC through sexual success markers, hence the emotional turmoil of the SC’s members. Playing up on this anxiety, the SC comes to promise relief from the emotional discomfort of not living up to the ideal male sexuality, while also setting “an overly rationalised performative standard” in which learning manhood becomes key for success (Schuurmans & Monaghan, 2015:2). This creates a paradoxical twist: the SC reinforces the same anxieties it claims to alleviate. Aspiring towards greater sexual success as inspired by the glorified Casanova myth is not without emotional costs for those working on their “game”. Schuurmans’ studies (Schuurmans, 2017; Schuurmans & Monaghan, 2015:2) provide a valuable insight into the emotional landscapes of the SC and into the relevance of the anxiety inducing, “double-edged sword” of the Alpha male embodiment.
Nevertheless, the relevance of such emotional frameworks and how they relate to wider systems of inequality is left mostly unaddressed. As Coston & Kimmel (2013) theorized about the MRA and their emotional policies of victimhood and reverse discrimination, such aggrieved feelings are real and extensive research showcases increased anxiety over changing social norms around sexuality – particularly so for heterosexual men (Montemurro & Murphy, 2018; Seal & Ehrhardt, 2003; Allen 2003, 2007; Bridges 2014; Bridges & Pascoe 2014; Cook 2006; Lamont, 2015; Schuurmans & Monaghan, 2015). But while such emotions are highly relevant and real, nevertheless, “real, here, is not to be
confused with true. These men do feel a lot, but their analysis of the cause of those feelings is decidedly off.” (Coston & Kimmel 2013:373).
It is here that we aim at extending current research on the SC by addressing how these frameworks and emotional landscapes possibly relate and contribute to wider cultural
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processes and to the reproduction of inequality (Lamont et al, 2014). If Connell and Messerschmidt’s claim that “challenges to hegemony are common, and so are adjustments in
the face of these challenges” (2005:835), which might “stabilize patriarchal power or reconstitute it in new conditions”(Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005: 853), then how is the SC
reacting to the implicit challenging of their practices that the recent MeToo movement brought into the public sphere? It is under such contestation of practices as under the sexualized, essentialist system of meaning constructing gender that the SC members’ moral positioning will be understood. More specifically, feminist contestation of sexuality meanings and practices not only threatens to destabilize men’s felt entitlement over women’s bodies but also actual identity markers of masculinity within which you are less of a man if sexual success and prowess is taken away or contested. The affective turn of the MRA is considered to be a strategic manufacturing of male victimhood (Allan, 2016:37) as response to increased anti-harassment activism (Gotell & Dutton, 2016). Nevertheless, we reiterate that we should not oversee the real potential of anxiety inflicting that such contestation of sexual norms and practices brings and which requires therefore careful scientific consideration. As Heath claims, feminism “makes things unsafe for men, unsettles assumed positions [and] undoes
given identities”(Heath in Bryson, 1999).
Following Demetriou’s (2001) dialectical pragmatism and Connell and Messerschmidt’s (2005) hybrid masculinity theories within which hegemonic masculinities appropriate whatever strategies seem best suited for continued (external) domination, we will look into how members of the local PU community position their membership and also frame wider feminist efforts of contestation of their practices (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005: 853), such as the MeToo movement. If the seduction community has been portrayed by O’Neill (2015) as a site of mediated intimacy that is driven by neoliberal, self entrepreneurship logics of hard labour then how do its members react to feminist claims of redefining cultural norms on sexuality and consent? Is a resort to male victimization in issues of sexual violence and consent (Gotell & Dutton, 2016; Ging, 2017) a strategic counterbalance to this neoliberal, self entrepreneurial alpha masculinity logic that underlies the seduction scene – all in order to justify membership, motivate controversial sexual practices and maintain an external hegemony (Demetriou, 2001; Ging, 2017)? This is not to say that these emotional landscapes are merely justificatory or “unreal”. We align our research endeavour with previous findings on the SC members’ struggle with anxiety (Schuurmans & Monaghan, 2015; Schuurmans, 2017) and we will therefore consider and
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address this emotional landscape as motivational, reality defining as well as discursive, while at the same time considering how it relates and contributes to issues of inequality.
Chapter 3: Methodological approach
Our research goals as well as the community’s extensive online presence and usage of a specific set of knowledge and skills have guided us towards a triangulation of methods. This has consisted of a desk research of the SC’s main concepts and ideas as well as of qualitative, in-depth interviews with members of the Dutch SC. Complementing the qualitative interviews with a careful desk research into the community’s set of professed knowledge and skills proved to be essential to a clearer, more in-depth understanding of our respondents’ personal perspectives - both during the actual field research as well as in the later process of data analysis.
Addressing how members of the SC frame their involvement in pickup and how they position themselves on issues of gender inequality revealed the importance of undertaking a qualitative methodological approach. Qualitative, in-depth interviews enabled us to “excavate” into rich, different layers of cultural meanings and cultural incoherence that come to provide valuable insights into the “emotional landscape” they inhabit (Pugh, 2013:43). Also, the qualitative interviews were relevant to filling in the missing blanks in current qualitative research on the SC; specifically on how SC’s members’ intersubjective frameworks and emotional landscape extend to wider issues of inequality.
3.1 Desk research
The desk research has comprised mainly of watching youtube videos, reading blogs, Facebook pages, forums, most of which were international but also a few Dutch ones. The main criteria for selecting sources consisted of online materials on some of the most referenced, globally famous dating companies and PU coaches (Hendricks, 2012): the Mystery Method belonging to the famous Erik van Markovich but also the more controversial figures of Julien Blanc and Owen Cook behind the Real Social Dynamics company. These two “schools” of pickup were strongly referenced in most forums and blogs but also in other instructors’ materials as representing the most important “foundations” for their teachings. Also, several Dutch based sources, publicly available and mostly written in English, were
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included, as they provided an important insight into the local scene of seduction and how globally famous PU references and ideologies were translated locally. The desk research has also included watching the popular VH1 reality show “The Pick Up Artist”, featuring the famous coach Mystery and his team. The show ran during two seasons between 2007 and 2008. Despite schools and main PU figures claiming self-entirety and unique approaches to gaming, an overall strong consistency was found that referenced a commonly shared basis of knowledge, concepts and practices. This shared basis of ideas was what we aimed at understanding through this desk research as it proved highly important for our immersion into our respondents’ worldviews and frameworks. This basis will be detailed in the findings section Concepts and lingo.
3.2 Participants
We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 12 members of the Dutch seduction community, all in order to explore their perceptions of the MeToo movement. Participants were aged between 21 to 39 years old, with one participant non-white. Most of them had started pickup training or practice during highschool or immediately after, with only two participants having started after 25 years old. Involvement in the community consisted of an average of 5-6 years old involvement for 7 of our respondents, with overall involvement ranging from 3 to 9 years.
Recruitment of participants was done by snowballing through gatekeepers (Palmer & Thompson, 2010), through members willing to participate and to also further recommend other participants among their community friends. Recruitment through snowballing has enabled us to reach into a national network of pickup art members, with most respondents from Amsterdam (5), but also from Den Bosch (2), Tilburg (1), Groningen (1) and Eindhoven (3). Many of our respondents maintained an otherwise tight connection with each other, regardless of their living location, in a quest to better their pickup skills within a “homosocial
space of cooperation and competition” (Almog et al, 2015:15)
The considerable ambivalence and controversy around terms such as “pick-up artist” or “PUAs” (Ging, 2017), as well as the high standards members associate to the label “pick-up artist”, leads to men not always self-identifying themselves as such while still being an active part of the PUA community. Recent media controversies have also pushed towards the rebranding of the commercial term “pick-up artist” towards more marketable terms such as “dating experts” or “lifestyle coaches” (O’Neill, 2015:8). Therefore the main sampling
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criteria of participants has been self-identification with “pick-up” or “game” as ideology and/or practices of seduction (Hambling-Jones & Merrison, 2012) – whether self-taught through online or offline sources, as “practicians” of PUA techniques and praxis or as active members in a local/national PU community. Specifically, snowballing implied asking Dutch students, young workers or members of the SC for friends who “are into pickup art”.
3.3 Interviews overview
In-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews of approximately 75 minutes on average were carried within the timeframe of 20th of March – 30th of May. While the community thrives on an online basis of promotion, recruitment and ideological subscription to wider MRA philosophy, its offline dimension of personal motivations, of praxis and of interaction as well as of sense-making of such practices is one that is best to be discursively tapped into through in-depth qualitative interviews. Interviews enabled us to have a closer look at the inter-subjective frameworks and emotional landscapes that the participants might use to position themselves and to frame topics such as MeToo.
The semi-structured interviews have been overall guided by a topic list (see Appendix 2). Introductory questions touched upon the participant’s involvement and experience within the PUA community, both online and offline. Respondents were then inquired into assessing their experience with pickup in terms of motivations, felt benefits or downfalls, which enabled us to elicit participants’ stories, to encourage a fluid sharing of personal experiences and to tap into more emotional realms (Pugh, 2013). In order to grasp participants’ “affective utterances” (Allan, 2016) on MeToo and to tap into their “emotional landscapes” according to Pugh’s theory (2013), questions were purposely framed so as to elicit narratives touching on our research topic. Since participants have early on single-handedly provided references to the community’s having acquired a “bad rap” in the past years, addressing how did they feel
about the recent controversies on PUA as well as how such controversial image impacts their life enabled us to tap into a more emotional dimension and served as transitional questions
towards the MeToo topic. Additional questions included at times their openness to share their experience with pickup with other people or with sexual partners. These questions allowed us to better grasp their emotional landscapes and enabled us to further inquire into how they perceive the anti sexual-harassment movement. Here, MeToo was defined and introduced as a well known and visible public debate on sexuality and shifting sexual norms. Main general questions revolved around how do they feel about the MeToo movement and the conversation
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on changing cultural norms of sexuality as well as how do they feel this movement impacts his dating life and his pickup experiences.
Fully aware of situational risks (Palmer & Thompson, 2010) brought about by my being a female researcher interviewing men on matters of sexuality and seduction, the interviews were designed so as to ensure a smooth, unbiased field research. The locations for the interviews were purposively chosen to be quiet, neutral and secure, such as public coffee places. Most respondents from outside Amsterdam were interviewed through Skype. Following Sturges & Hanrahan (2004), the two interview modes - face to face and telephone interviews - offered little differences in the quality of interview data, in the themes emerged and in the depth of content. According to Sturges & Hanrahan (2004), the suitability of telephone interviews (here, Skype) is to be considered according to the specific research endeavour. The topic we looked into proved to be an appropriate topic to be addressed through both Skype and face to face interviews. Its sensitive nature enabled respondents to feel a sense of anonymity and disclosure via Skype (Sturges & Hanrahan, 2004; Fenig et al, 1993) and to help us navigate what might be a reluctance to participate due to the nature of the interview. Last but not least, researching into what can be considered deviant or socially disapproved behaviours (Sturges & Hanrahan, 2004:109) can pose safety concerns and situational risks (Palmer, Thompson, 2010) that can deter researchers from addressing particular topics – which at times made Skype interviews a more suitable, research effective choice. Sampling and approaching potential participants as well as overall interaction during interviews was strictly made on a basis of an approachable yet formal and neutral language that emphasized the confidentiality of the research. Building and maintaining rapport as foundation for a good qualitative interview has been a major concern both prior and during the interview itself, as well as eliciting information and probing (Spradley, 1979). Interviews were recorded and transcribed. After transcription, all recordings were destroyed in order to protect participants’ anonymity. One of the respondents has sent us a follow-up text in a manner of few hours after our interview, which has also been included in our analysis. Furthermore, all details that could have given away our respondents’ identity, such as their name, job, occupation, have also been fully removed or pseudonymized.
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3.4 Interpretive approach and positionality
My “being-in-the-world” (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012:172) as a woman and a researcher, particularly within this specific research endeavour, has demanded cognisance of its potential impact upon the research. A researcher’s positionality requires a careful consideration of her/his gendered, racialized eyes as well as of her/his developed theoretical lenses through which they filter and “grasp” the world around them. While particular attention was given to building and maintaining rapport, some respondents did at times reference my “womanhood” as contrast to their identity, to their experiences and struggles, thus inescapably bringing it to the forefront of our interaction. Reflexivity on my being a flesh-and-bones woman and a researcher did at times emphasize how researching unto such topics can be challenging as they can at times be “hard to digest and capable of evoking all
manner of visceral reactions.” (Menzies 2007:87). Nevertheless, this can only reify the
importance of researching and broadening the conversation on such otherwise rich and complex subjects (Palmer & Thompson, 2010).
While challenging, we argue that it is this same positionality that also holds the potential of providing richness of insight and can enable the collecting of valuable, rich data. My presence as a woman interviewer, as figure reflecting participants’ ambivalent take on femininity as both object of desire and source of anxiety, has enabled tapping into their honourable / visceral selves. Following Pugh’s theory on contradictory cultural accounts (2013), incoherence is something to be expected and embraced rather than solved as it provides a window of understanding into its cultural context of meaning. Emotions are here considered the link behind cultural incoherence (Pugh, 2013). As Pugh (2013:48) states, “Contradictions and paradoxes are powerful tools for highlighting the emotionally charged –
what is emotionally difficult to claim, where anxiety lies, and what sort of cultural problems people face for which they need to reach for such contradictory explanations”. Interpretive
interviews allow excavating into these different layers of cultural meanings so as to better grasp the emotional landscape that people inhabit and ultimately the wider social dimension of their motivations (Pugh, 2013:43).
In this sense, an emphasis was made during the in-depth interviews (Weiss, 1994; Pugh, 2013) on eliciting respondents’ stories, encouraging them to narrate rather than just give factual answers. Also, in order to tap into these rich layers given by the sensitive topic, careful consideration was given to neutral probing and encouragement, as well as to generally
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keeping questions open. Participants were encouraged to emphasize the subjects they felt were important thus allowing topics to come up on their “own”, as mean to enable stronger validity; also, choices of phrasing, of additional questions as well as timing of questions were overall adjusted to the respondents’ input. These aspects enabled an interpretive approach to both interviewing and later analysis. (Pugh, 2013).
3.5 Data analysis
In an effort to achieve “a situational fit between observed facts and rules” (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012:171) we balanced an inductive-deductive methodological approach. Drawing upon existing theories and research on masculinities and on the seduction community, we immersed into a repeated cycle of reading of notes and transcripts, data coding, memo writing, generating and reviewing/merging themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and constant revisiting of data as mean to clarify and deepen insights (Kilpinen, 2009). Interpretive analysis also implied a fine attunement to the discursive choices of participants and to their usage of rich language such as metaphors, logical contradictions, non-verbal cues or emotional references (Pugh, 2013). Prior as well as during the data collecting, a thorough desk research was done so as to deepen our understanding of the PUA lingo and concepts as available within the community’s online dimension that stands as important “medium for
examining social constructions of reality” (Hanna, 2014). Data analysis was done through the
use of the qualitative data analysis program ATLAS.ti.
Chapter 4: Findings
This following section will take us through the main findings of our interviews, as comprised within several topics. First, an introductory, desk research section will first lay the grounds of basic concepts and lingo within pickup. We considered these necessary for an in-depth understanding of our findings and of how they relate to our respondents’ worldviews. The following two subchapters will emphasize the two main frameworks used by our participants to position themselves, their experiences and membership within the SC, as corresponding to our two first research subquestions: a neoliberal, hegemonic masculinity framework versus an emotional, “victim power” framework. Their resort to these two main moral frameworks will help us further explore and understand the final two subchapters
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addressing the respondents’ positioning on the MeToo movement: self-distancing versus false allegations anxiety.
4.1 Concepts and lingo
We will here address the main concepts behind the community’s sexual scripts and procedural schemata of seduction, as derived from our desk research of the SC’s main referenced materials as well as of the local Dutch SC’s online sources. While some of these concepts have not been explicitly included in the findings section or directly referenced by our respondents, they together construct an important body of interrelated ideas that helps ground the worldviews of our respondents and are thus essential for an in-depth understanding.
Beliefs deriving from popular evolutionary psychology theories and biological determinism claims are widely preached within pickup art’s rhetoric and embodied within its set of knowledge and practices (Ging, 2017; Denes, 2011). One of the two important concepts underlying the pickup logic is the popular, essentialist “alpha fux beta bux”: specifically, women look for and are attracted to Alpha males for sex. This popular PU script is infused in all motivational marketing messages that promote a “quick fix” for a hedonistic pursuit of sexual success by learning how to embody the Alpha figure and “lead” her towards seduction. But as Hendricks (2012) argues, the promised fix is a rather laborious, ascetic one thus building up to both anxiety and motivation, as Schuurmans (2017) proves. Also, the “If I
don’t, we won’t” sexual script (Montemurro & Murphy, 2018) positing male sexual initiation
skills as evolutionary imposed defines the SC’s motivational worldview and thus grounds the inescapability of learning pickup as only mean to achieve sexual success.
Here, a very common belief concerns the “currency” system of sexuality (Schuurmans, 2017), in which women’s role as sexual “gatekeepers” leads to an overly inflated sexual competition between men and to an implicit imbalance of power working in women’s favour. As described on the Dutch page Masterflirt (Gorny, n.d. a), attraction is evolutionary gendered: for men it’s an “on/off switch”, while for women it’s a “dimmer” – hence the hard work and the initiation responsibility that biologically falls on men’s shoulder. Men are biologically attracted to female beauty, while women are attracted to Alpha male characteristics – here ranging from social status markers to simple re-enactments of domineering Alpha behaviour. According to Gorny (n.d., b), an Alpha man is assertive, direct and in control of his emotions, perseverant and risk-taking, confident, and mostly, a leader of
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the group, oriented towards value giving to himself while keeping in mind the group’s best interest; he is also the leader of a relationship, and achieving the Alpha state of mind is done by channelling a “growth mindset” – Alpha is something you become and learn to embody and display. In this sense, a “social proof” theory, as popularized by the famous Mystery (2007), dictates that men have to display such masculinity markers in what is called a DHV (demonstration of high value).
If not referencing biological and evolutionary destiny, then seduction is at times explained as constrained by the socially imposed restrictions on female sexuality and its double standard: women might not initiate or continue sexual interactions because they are afraid to be considered “sluts”. Having to “play hard to get” is therefore a woman’s biologically and socially imposed curse and can manifest in her not initiating or in her “resisting” the sexual interaction (Johnson, n.d.). References are also at times made to women having to navigate many “creeps” on a daily basis: “a girl rolling her eyes, not giving you
anything to work with is just a filter to get out all the creep, weird, drunk criminals and this is nothing that you need to take personally”.(RSDMax, 2017a) In this sense, perseverance of
approach is recommended while the limit consists of a woman’s “clear NO” (Johnson, n.d.) or her walking away: “it’s your responsibility as a guy to hang in there, because as long as
she’s there, you’re good [..] she can leave at anytime, but as long as she’s with you, you definitely have a chance, and then it’s in your responsibility to warm her up” (Tomic, 2017).
Concepts such as “shit testing” or “the aggressive version of a girl being interested in
you, [..] Some girls just like, ‘I don’t like to be passive, I like to just throw shit at the guy, right off the bat, so I can sift out all the losers beta males from the cool alpha males’”
(RSDMax, 2017b), reinforce the necessity for persistence and for display of an Alpha identity and confidence while at the same time portraying women as “confrontational”, “bitchy” or “ice princesses” – reflecting MRA’s construction of femininity (Ging, 2017; Gottel & Dutton, 2016). “Shit testing” as well as “last minute resistance” to sexual intimacy (LMR) - reveals an underlying belief in women’s verbal inconsistency to which men must gain “reading” skills. “Resistance” as test of masculinity rather than true disinterest is commonly referenced, and thus again, perseverance is key(Johnson, n.d.). Ways to overcome LMR while already in a “sex location” is by keeping a woman’s “emotional bank account” full, in a quest to make her feel emotionally comfortable to engage in sexual interaction. Also, “framing” her mind through strategic, sex positive story telling is advised. Specifically, “her preframe should
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you” (RSDMax, 2015). According to Max from RSD, this encourages the woman to subconsciously see sex as a way to express and confirm her own identity to herself as “empowered”.
Women are constructed as incongruent in their verbal expressing of their true desires: specifically, that women verbalize their appreciation of a “nice guy” while in fact being attracted to and responding to the “bad guy”, Alpha male figure. Bodily reactions represent thus the ultimate indicators of a woman’s interest. In sharing his seduction method to a group of women, Mystery states that: “what a woman says and how they respond are two entirely
different things. There are specific hardwired signals that you are evolutionary calibrated to demonstrate when there is a man of high value in proximity to you” (Mystery, 2014).
Attraction is, according to him, “not a choice” – in short, primary urges overrule rationality. A particular system of indicators of interest (IOI) is put in place so as to read a woman’s true “signs” as inscribed in her body (Denes, 2011) and so to enable a rule-based, methodical approach to seducing women. Among such physical signs or IOIs are: if she touches her hair while approached; smiling and giggling – even if she seems to disagree; crossing her legs; not leaving etc (Mystery, 2014). While Mystery’s approach can be considered somewhat more methodical (Hendricks, 2012) than the approach of the RSD seduction company (Real Social Dynamics), the focus on the body as ultimate indicator remains supreme in both. In the series “The Pickup Artist” (Ney et al, 2007-2008), Mystery advices participants to pay attention to these signs as valuable clues into a further escalating of physical intimacy. Analyzing his student’s “target” body language while being “picked up”, he enthusiastically says: “Boom!
She touched her hair. They have no clue they’re doing it!”4
.
With more than 700k views, a popular video of the famous Real Social Dynamics seduction company touches upon the issue of IOIs as well. In this in-field hidden footage lesson (RSDMax, 2017b), IOIs are explained and visually demonstrated as being found “in the subtleties”, as a woman’s primary drive is emotions, while man’s is logic. Women as profoundly emotional while men as strongly rational is a current idea. Interestingly in this same video, the instructor constantly calls men “retarded”, in an endearing way - suggesting the unknowing innocence of men over this women’s complex irrationality. Physicality is the central IOI: from simple indicators such as women “showing off her goods”, flicking their hair, laughing to poor jokes, sitting/moving next to you, to acceptance/non reactivity to
4
