THINQon : Is it ethical to be a Pick Up Artist?

The Living Room Relationships Is it ethical to be a Pick Up Artist?

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Juri Pavlov

Is it ethical to be a Pick Up Artist?

Latest Post: December 4, 2011 at 11:32 PM

12 followers

Well today I am pretty productive thus another topic which I have been contemplating recently.

A friend of mine is a PUA (a pick up artist). A PUA is roughly a man who is skilled in meeting, attracting, and seducing women ( but I think most of you knew that already :) ). Before I go on I must also make you aware of a very important distinction: In the Society of this pick up artists there exists a distinction between “Naturals” and those who have taught themselves or have been taught the necessary skills. “Naturals” are just born with the innate ability to attract women – those guys who always had the prettiest or a pretty enough girlfriend, who always just seem to know how to talk to a woman and who have no trouble getting laid.

This post does not concern itself with the “Naturals” for they have been born the way they are and there is nothing to discuss there.

The Taught-PUA is a far more intriguing and controversial concept. The friend mentioned above is one of those. For two years he has been frequenting discos and bars together with his mentor in order to hone his skills as a Pick Up Artist. To be frank the things these guys can do are pretty amazing.

We once were out and my friend just went to a girl he has never seen before and kissed her and was later this evening accompanied home by her. (the girl was not some kind of slut. She was a psychology major, very intelligent etc. etc. etc.) – and he did not lie to her even once. I was there the whole time and I have known the guy for ten years. There were no lies no false promises just the pure ability to captivate and tame a woman.

He has several times offered me to teach me the “Skills” but I don’t know whether this is the right thing to do? Isn’t it some kind of fraud? I mean there is a reason why we come into the world the way we are. Men who are good with women are often also pretty good in socializing with almost everybody and are in many cases born leaders. If one teaches oneself only the skill to seduce women without also having the other abilities which often go along with it – isn’t that unfair towards the woman?

This post is referenced by the following other contributors:

Dennis Leede	in "Can one get out of the friend zone?"	(The Living Room)
Dana Samuel	in "How do you reveal yourself to others?"	(The Living Room)
Julie Sabatier	in "On pretending"	(The Living Room)

Reply to:

Linda OReilly

November 8, 2010 at 10:06 AM

88 followers

I think you should learn the skills, Juri.
I want to know how your friend will teach them to you.
I want to know if the skills can be taught at all and you'll be able to report level of effectiveness back to us.
If it works you'll probably be able to apply the skills to other situations as well--with a bit of modification of course.
As for ethics--it's not like you're kidnapping anyone. Or clouding their minds a la 'The Shadow'.

If he does it with drugs or duct tape that's bad. Don't do that.
But if it's skill and charm, go for it.

Reply to: or

Graham A Nelson

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Juri Pavlov

November 8, 2010 at 11:10 AM

12 followers

Hi Linda Thanks for the encouragement.

You are absolutely right concerning the aspect of the reusability of those skills. As I have seen they don’t only help you successfully wooing women but also enhance your socializing skills immensely. Still there is one ethical hurdle I just can’t take. As mentioned before I did some reading and there is a general framework of what to display in order to make a woman fall for you. Those rules are true and have been true for a very long time. The only somewhat unprecedented aspect being that nobody has ever before seen seduction as an exact science that can be learned and even advanced - A science with its own rules and laws which must be followed in order to achieve the desired results.

To make the ethical problem I am grappling with more accessible I will just present to you a part of the framework mentioned before.

There exists a concept which is called Higher-Value. The basic idea is that in order for a woman to feel attracted to you she has to perceive that your value is higher than or at least equals hers. Here the value mainly alludes to the social value of an individual. In order to establish such a value-gradient or equality the theory of pick-up offers an efficient solution: just make the woman feel as if she was worth less then she actually is. Well one might wonder how a spontaneous demotion of a person’s self esteem might be implemented. As I have been explained there are several ways

First you should tease or demote the woman appropriately by bringing attention to her flaws. For example if a woman has a flat chest you could really get to her by telling a story about a female friend of yours who has lots of benefits because of her pronounced cleavage. (well I am not an expert and the real guys are much subtler but I think the gist is clear)

Then there are also IODs (Indicators of disinterest). This essentially means exploiting the fact that no woman likes to be ignored. I have seen how this is done “in the field”. In the scenario mentioned in my initial post sometime during the evening my friend just suddenly stood up and went to another table to chat with some people he also didn’t know. Well I was left alone with his victim who was quite baffled. After a while he returned and continued the conversation we were having before as if nothing had happened. There were other minute tricks of which I became aware only much later but this was one of the more obvious moves.

Now perhaps you begin to see the source of my misgivings.