Scan barcode
kathrinpassig's review
4.0
Would have been even better if someone had weeded out all instances of the word "incredibly", but still.
keelyellenmarie's review
4.0
Not exactly a pleasant read... PUA land is just too creepy for that. But it's well written and relatively insightful, and worth a read if you are interested in PUA land as seen from a feminist perspective. Just be prepared to feel like taking a shower afterwards.
_jasper's review
4.0
It's framed as an book about how the culture of pickup artists work, however it also talks about ways relationships or sexual interactions work, discusses a lot about consent and the polyamory and S&M communities.
ejdecoster's review
3.0
This book felt a little bit like two books smashed together - the personal and the analytical. While Thorn's perspective made me a bit more sympathetic to many of the individuals who are attracted to and involved in the "seduction game" culture, I found myself feeling much more hostile to the culture as a whole. I did not always find Thorn to be a sympathetic narrator, so it's possible I felt more open to the perspectives of the PUAs in contrast, though I think she brought a fairly good critical eye to her subject.
nitessine's review
4.0
Pickup artistry is one of those fascinating subcultures that I find it very difficult to look away from. There’s just a sufficient amount of good ideas in there to keep me from dismissing it as a morass of misogynistic drivel, and as befits what’s essentially a self-help community for people with poor social skills, it produces a fair share of unintentional comedy. It also, unfortunately, offers a forum and audience for a number of individuals that I wouldn’t characterize needing help so much as needing treatment.
Also, I thought [b:The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists|900|The Game Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists|Neil Strauss|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1410129471s/900.jpg|387] was a pretty good novel, though I’d describe it as the sordid tale of men with serious issues heading for rock bottom rather than the guidebook some people have understood it as.
So, enter Clarisse Thorn, a sex-positive feminist blogger and her series of posts edited into a surprisingly lengthy book. Thorn takes an almost ethnographical approach to studying and analyzing the PUA community from a feminist standpoint. Since engaging the notoriously jargon-heavy PUA community with the concepts of feminism must’ve seemed too understandable, she also inserts terminology from the S&M and polyamory scenes. Fortunately there’s a glossary, as the last of eight appendices.
Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser is a rather expansive work, and also functions as a popularized introduction to feminism with a clear explanation of the issues and a practical, grounded approach. Thorn is interesting, clear, sometimes funny, sometimes personal, very perceptive and always analytical in her writing. The book’s provenance as a series of blog posts is clearly visible, though – certain concepts are explained anew in every chapter when they first come up. I think the meaning of the S&M term “switch” is gone over six or seven times. Another thing is the hyperlink-heaviness of the ebook. Reading this on paper or off a device without internet access loses something when you can’t follow up.
I like her approach. She gives a picture of the community that is fair and balanced (a phrase I use hesitantly due to a violent allergy to the fallacy of the excluded middle). According to one of the many interviewed coaches, the vast majority of his clients are relatively ordinary people who just need a bit of help, a confidence boost, and once they have some success they’re never heard of again. “You can judge a self-help movement by how many people leave it. If people are leaving it, then it's doing something right."
Of course, it’s also doing some things terribly, terribly wrong. Some corners of the community are amazingly toxic in the “why are these people not in jail?” kinda way. And I do mean that literally – the PUA coach Gunwitch actually shot a woman in the face in 2010 (shitty aim, she recovered – and what kind of woman-hater uses the word “witch” in their handle anyway?). He is arguably not even the worst example.
Also, probably worse in the large scale of things is the vocabulary used. The PUA phrasebook accepts and reinforces the paradigm that sex is a commodity, something with a price arising from its scarcity, which is such a wrongheaded way of looking at it that I don’t know where to begin (except, I suppose, in the sex industry, but that’s a whole different topic). This is a very prevalent mode of thought in western culture. Men “get some”, women “give it up”. It’s also at the root of the Internet Nice Guy way of thinking: “insert kindness coins until sex falls out”.
As a whole, I think our culture might be well served by learning away from this mode of thought. The market economy mode of thinking is bad enough when applied to stuff that’s actually subject to scarcity. Folks, as a species, we ain’t gonna run out of nookie.
The commodity model is, of course, unequal. Supply is controlled by women, demand comes from men. This reinforces another lovely social construct called “adversarial gender roles”, which is a whole pack of unspoken assumptions about the differences between men and women and their respective places in the world. A prime example of this in action is how sexually active people are perceived: if a man has many partners, he’s a “player” and gains social status. If a woman pulls off the same stunt, she’s shamed.
While I find the celebration of sexual conquest (see, there we go again with the adversarial vocabulary) rather distasteful, I feel the opposite is far worse. Having actually encountered its rare egalitarian strain (a surprising and unwelcome experience), I feel I can speak with a degree of authority on this.
Incidentally, as a semi-professional in the field of gaming, I also feel that using the vocabulary of games in the field of human relationships is… off. It presumes a certain goal-orientedness that is probably not at all useful in developing a lasting relationship. It’s not as terrible as the discourse of the market, but it’s… off. The logical culmination of this way of thinking is the notched bedstead. Of course, as Thorn points out, this all depends a lot on whether one thinks of their partner as a player character or an NPC.
No, really, she says that. The book has a very approachable style.
She also discusses what makes for a healthy relationship, common mistakes, dating, and so on. On a few occasions, I found myself nodding and going “Yeah, done that. And that. And that. Oops.” Of course, especially in the dating sections it was useful to remember that the American dating thing looks utterly foreign to me because it is.
For all its problems – and let it be remembered that they are many – it should be acknowledged that something like the PUA community is necessary. Since we no longer do arranged marriages and women have other choices than wife and dead, those of us who have trouble approaching the opposite (or same, for some of us) sex have, well, trouble. This shit isn’t taught at school, and we are a social species. As I was writing this review, I got linked an article by George Monbiot waxing pessimistic about "an epidemic of loneliness". It's hard to condemn something that is trying to help with that.
It is unfortunate that the market got cornered by a theoretical framework which emphasizes getting laid and offers pretty much nothing to someone looking for commitment, but this is what we ended up with. It is a very limited toolkit, and though when all you have is a hammer everything starts looking like a nail, it is also true that the tool itself is amoral and it is the user who decides whether to utilize it for good or evil.
Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser is a good book. Though approaching the subject from the context of a sex-positive feminist framework, it gives voice to a number of people from within the community, including an interview of Neil Strauss. It is fair, giving credit where deserved and condemnation when called for. It is also user friendly and explains the specialized terminology it uses from a number of fields and articulates its points well.
Also, I thought [b:The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists|900|The Game Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists|Neil Strauss|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1410129471s/900.jpg|387] was a pretty good novel, though I’d describe it as the sordid tale of men with serious issues heading for rock bottom rather than the guidebook some people have understood it as.
So, enter Clarisse Thorn, a sex-positive feminist blogger and her series of posts edited into a surprisingly lengthy book. Thorn takes an almost ethnographical approach to studying and analyzing the PUA community from a feminist standpoint. Since engaging the notoriously jargon-heavy PUA community with the concepts of feminism must’ve seemed too understandable, she also inserts terminology from the S&M and polyamory scenes. Fortunately there’s a glossary, as the last of eight appendices.
Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser is a rather expansive work, and also functions as a popularized introduction to feminism with a clear explanation of the issues and a practical, grounded approach. Thorn is interesting, clear, sometimes funny, sometimes personal, very perceptive and always analytical in her writing. The book’s provenance as a series of blog posts is clearly visible, though – certain concepts are explained anew in every chapter when they first come up. I think the meaning of the S&M term “switch” is gone over six or seven times. Another thing is the hyperlink-heaviness of the ebook. Reading this on paper or off a device without internet access loses something when you can’t follow up.
I like her approach. She gives a picture of the community that is fair and balanced (a phrase I use hesitantly due to a violent allergy to the fallacy of the excluded middle). According to one of the many interviewed coaches, the vast majority of his clients are relatively ordinary people who just need a bit of help, a confidence boost, and once they have some success they’re never heard of again. “You can judge a self-help movement by how many people leave it. If people are leaving it, then it's doing something right."
Of course, it’s also doing some things terribly, terribly wrong. Some corners of the community are amazingly toxic in the “why are these people not in jail?” kinda way. And I do mean that literally – the PUA coach Gunwitch actually shot a woman in the face in 2010 (shitty aim, she recovered – and what kind of woman-hater uses the word “witch” in their handle anyway?). He is arguably not even the worst example.
Also, probably worse in the large scale of things is the vocabulary used. The PUA phrasebook accepts and reinforces the paradigm that sex is a commodity, something with a price arising from its scarcity, which is such a wrongheaded way of looking at it that I don’t know where to begin (except, I suppose, in the sex industry, but that’s a whole different topic). This is a very prevalent mode of thought in western culture. Men “get some”, women “give it up”. It’s also at the root of the Internet Nice Guy way of thinking: “insert kindness coins until sex falls out”.
As a whole, I think our culture might be well served by learning away from this mode of thought. The market economy mode of thinking is bad enough when applied to stuff that’s actually subject to scarcity. Folks, as a species, we ain’t gonna run out of nookie.
The commodity model is, of course, unequal. Supply is controlled by women, demand comes from men. This reinforces another lovely social construct called “adversarial gender roles”, which is a whole pack of unspoken assumptions about the differences between men and women and their respective places in the world. A prime example of this in action is how sexually active people are perceived: if a man has many partners, he’s a “player” and gains social status. If a woman pulls off the same stunt, she’s shamed.
While I find the celebration of sexual conquest (see, there we go again with the adversarial vocabulary) rather distasteful, I feel the opposite is far worse. Having actually encountered its rare egalitarian strain (a surprising and unwelcome experience), I feel I can speak with a degree of authority on this.
Incidentally, as a semi-professional in the field of gaming, I also feel that using the vocabulary of games in the field of human relationships is… off. It presumes a certain goal-orientedness that is probably not at all useful in developing a lasting relationship. It’s not as terrible as the discourse of the market, but it’s… off. The logical culmination of this way of thinking is the notched bedstead. Of course, as Thorn points out, this all depends a lot on whether one thinks of their partner as a player character or an NPC.
No, really, she says that. The book has a very approachable style.
She also discusses what makes for a healthy relationship, common mistakes, dating, and so on. On a few occasions, I found myself nodding and going “Yeah, done that. And that. And that. Oops.” Of course, especially in the dating sections it was useful to remember that the American dating thing looks utterly foreign to me because it is.
For all its problems – and let it be remembered that they are many – it should be acknowledged that something like the PUA community is necessary. Since we no longer do arranged marriages and women have other choices than wife and dead, those of us who have trouble approaching the opposite (or same, for some of us) sex have, well, trouble. This shit isn’t taught at school, and we are a social species. As I was writing this review, I got linked an article by George Monbiot waxing pessimistic about "an epidemic of loneliness". It's hard to condemn something that is trying to help with that.
It is unfortunate that the market got cornered by a theoretical framework which emphasizes getting laid and offers pretty much nothing to someone looking for commitment, but this is what we ended up with. It is a very limited toolkit, and though when all you have is a hammer everything starts looking like a nail, it is also true that the tool itself is amoral and it is the user who decides whether to utilize it for good or evil.
Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser is a good book. Though approaching the subject from the context of a sex-positive feminist framework, it gives voice to a number of people from within the community, including an interview of Neil Strauss. It is fair, giving credit where deserved and condemnation when called for. It is also user friendly and explains the specialized terminology it uses from a number of fields and articulates its points well.
texttheater's review
4.0
"I looked at him: this attractive, white, American, straight, cisgendered man with a great education and an upper-middle-class job. Granted, Jonnie Walker worked hard to get where he is... but really, why _would_ he think life should be fair? I felt a headache coming on." (p. 129)
Great definition: "[PUAs] figure out what makes charming assholes charming, and then they seek to bestow that same charm upon non-assholes." (ibid.)
"A delicious dose of strategic ambiguity can come from doing novel things together. It can come from compartmentalizing extremely intense ambiguities like S&M. It can come from adversarial flirtation that stops when the situation gets serious. It doesn't have to come from uncertainty about the relationship itself." (p. 217)
Great definition: "[PUAs] figure out what makes charming assholes charming, and then they seek to bestow that same charm upon non-assholes." (ibid.)
"A delicious dose of strategic ambiguity can come from doing novel things together. It can come from compartmentalizing extremely intense ambiguities like S&M. It can come from adversarial flirtation that stops when the situation gets serious. It doesn't have to come from uncertainty about the relationship itself." (p. 217)
will_sargent's review
4.0
Good solid book from the perspective of a geeky feminist on pick up artists. She's honest enough to talk about her own relationships as she learns more about how they see society, and the conflict between what she believes, what she'd like to believe, and what the communities around her would rather she believe.
More...