Using Insults to Pick Up Women
Men may have success using insults to pick up women — if both the men and the women involved are misogynists, say researchers.
This particular chick magnet strategy was made popular by Neil Strauss, who checked out a workshop run by an aspiring magician named Mystery when his book editor asked him to explore the community of pickup artists. The resulting manual, The Game, reads a bit like the frog-turned-Prince tale of Crazy Stupid Love.
Some tips involve misogyny, others don’t. “Approach a woman within three seconds of seeing her so you don’t lose your nerve” and asking “What’s your sign?” or “What’s your type?” seem nontoxic enough.
But men are also told to isolate “the target” from her friends and subtly insult her to lower her self-worth. That’s called “negging.”
For instance: ignore the girl you want and flirt with one of her friends instead. Or, briefly disqualify yourself from being a potential suitor:
I go to blow my nose and I look at her and I say, “What, are you gonna watch?” I’m disqualifying myself as I’m blowing my nose in front of her!
Mystery explains that if “the target” is especially beautiful she’ll wonder why she’s being ignored and assume the man is highly selective and accustomed to beauty. Next, she will admire his status and want to win him over.
In another “neg,” Mystery suggests men ask unflattering questions like, “What have you got going for you other than your looks?” Or, “I like your hair, is that your natural color?”
This takes the woman off-guard and makes her question her value. So, of course she wants to win the guy over.
But really, why would anyone be drawn to such men? A woman attending a seminar hoping to get an inside scoop was puzzled by advice to ogle other women:
Despite the theory that what is unavailable becomes more appealing, and the fact that at times, it may seem true, there is absolutely nothing sexy, alluring or seductive about obviously looking at other females while talking to a woman… It’s just rude. Period. And if a guy can’t maintain a two-minute conversation, what’s he going to be like on an actual date, let alone in a relationship?
Exactly! I’ve always broken up with guys like that. And the “neg” advice didn’t work in a documentary I saw on speed dating when a couple of guys tried it.
Yet studies show that it can work – for those who are sexist.
In two different studies University of Kansas researchers found that the more negatively women viewed women, the more receptive they were to these techniques. These women were more likely to accept male privilege and to like aggressively dominant men.
And the more negatively men saw women the more likely they were to use the techniques.
A match made in heaven – or hell.
Forewarned is forearmed.
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Posted on August 27, 2012, in sex, gender, men, women, sexism, relationships, feminism, psychology and tagged feminism, gender, men, Neil Strauss, psychology, relationships, sex, sexism, The Game, women. Bookmark the permalink. 11 Comments.
Any woman who falls for this sort of crap deserves the disappointment.
Of course, being subject to those kinds of things makes it easy to avoid in the future, and you can usually pick out the sort of boneheads who’d try that sort of crap.
What do you think?
Forewarned is forearmed.
It also explains one of of my students who told me his planned strategy to lower women’s self esteem to get them in bed.
Because a woman with any sense of self worth would find him and his advances repulsive? He doesn’t realize it, but he’s telling on himself. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, aye? (Pun intended.)
From a guy’s POV, I dunno. That sounds like a pretty low percentage game to me. The most likely out come is a) being replied to in kind b) getting a drink tossed in your face or c) waking up the next morning with a potential new stalker. People who use and respond to this sort of move probably deserve each other, but not in a good way!
Scary. I hate the idea of ‘pick-up’ routines. Urgh!
I had a male friend recommend this book to me, and I frustratingly could not explain to him my frustration with it. He kept telling me I was being close-minded and not acknowledging how social interactions actually play out.
The problem I had with The Game, was the same problem I had with the Tucker Max stories actually, and that was that the main character never feels or claims to feel any remorse for when their attempts to prey on insecurities works. The main character is so pleased their behavior has resulted in a good story they don’t reflect on their sad or sordid role in the whole affair; and they never delve deep into the reason a ‘victim’ succumbs to their verbal and mental assault.
Back to The Game more exlusively: the pick up artists, in fact sort of ignore the women themselves altogether unless their trick works. This research about misogyny begetting more misogyny makes sense, it’s a trick that pick up artists believe works because using it has resulted in success.
Also they never admit the total self-serving reason they are participating in their activities, they are applauding themselves essentially for “winning” at an activity that should be natural, not forced. Some people are better at it than others, and some can be helped to get better, but what these so-called artists are doing is just a scam, a falsity that doesn’t go beyond the illusion of success with the opposite sex. This is the sort of thing that I think Will Smith’s character was arguing against in Hitch.
My final comment, is that many of these men begin and end their social malicious manipulation of women due to feeling wronged by the entire gender after a poor relationship (such as the author of The Game). It is the same attitude espoused by Miss Havisham in Great Expectations which vilifies an entire gender because of one mistreatment. Even if it is a grave mistreatment, does it justify abuse (even verbal or mental) and should it be glorified? It is okay for men to have temporary flights of fancy which involve the degradation of women because they are “getting over” a bad break up?
I know that perception is based on experience, but I have seen men take a deplorable point of view on women, one that I believe endangers women who become victims in situations which backdrop on relationships. This point of view extends beyond the relationship and into cases of domestic violence and legislature on rape (i.e. only forcible rape or we must call into question a woman’s honor; if there was no sign of struggle it must have been totally consensual, right?); because, if one woman has jilted a man, than all women must be untrustworthy? I say this because of a man who expressed his opinion that a woman who was the victim of murder in the states put herself in danger because she was slinking around cheating on her husband (in a Dear John manner). When he was confronted he admitted he was projecting a little because he had divorced a woman because she cheated on him while he was away (not at war, mind you, but at a military school in another state, but anyway). This is a man who is supposed to be a supervisor to be approachable to a woman who might be being abused and needs a figure of authority to tell. What if he demeans and doubts her just because he had a poor divorce? It’s a real concern to me, and I think this attitude is reinforced by books like The Game. The repercussions are broader than the author is really aware.
Hmm, if this is too long a comment can you delete it and let me know, I wouldn’t mind putting it into my own blog, I just got carried away…
Interesting. Thanks.
Comments I make on others’ blogs often give me ideas for my own.
“The Game” is aptly named. Sounds like it has as much to do with these men’s personal identity as with getting sex.
Surprising how often that’s the case.
So do these sexist women have such low self-esteem that they feel the guys are just being honest, or do they see themselves as better than other women and believe that the guys will soon realize that they are the exception?
Good question.
Maybe the misogynist behavior just seems normal to them since it fits their own attutides.
Why would you want to lower a womans self- asteem just to feel powerful and to gain her attention? Any women who falls for such bull deserves a great amount of disappointment. The correct way to get a womans attention is to be yourself and talk to her, dont be a jerk and insult her.