More video of Julian Blanc lecturing a room-full of young men on how to coerce women into having sex.
It’s nauseating to look at, because it’s so inhuman. It’s as if women are food and the men are all ravenously hungry. They just want to eat, that’s all. They don’t want to eat people, they just want food.
They just want to fuck something. For some unfathomable reason, the somethings all have these useless brains perched on top of the part that has the penis-holder, so you can’t just fuck them just like that – you have to “strike up a conversation” and “steer them to where you want to go” and “get them on the bed” and “take off their clothes” and have answers to anything they say.
I know this has been said a million times, but honestly – they think feminists devalue men? This shit is what devalues men. I don’t think most men are like this. I’d be embarrassed to be identified with this crap.
They just want to fuck something
That’s what’s so weird. to me. Perhaps it’s my age and privilege but I have found sex to always be nice, but less necessary than food, a roof over my head, and a feeling I’m doing stuff that’s useful or interesting. Sometimes “interesting” includes the sex, but if it doesn’t there’s always things to build, snarky blog comments to write, dogs that need their noses rubbed, etc – the list goes on. Tying one’s self-worth to a crazed obsession about getting sex seems to be letting one’s hobby take over and rule one’s life, which seems inconsistent, to me, when many of the “pick up artists” appear to be control freaks. Don’t they realize that they are letting their peers’ expectations and their own need to (what need, really?) … whatever… run away with them? Everyone has to figure out their own criteria for leading a meaningful life, but it doesn’t take a lot of deep thought to realize that simply trying to rack up a huge “score” isn’t that much of an accomplishment. Epicurus says (I think, rightly) that greediness and obsession with material wealth is a result of a basic need (for food and shelter, in Epicurus’ example) turning into a misunderstanding in which the seeker fails to understand that, past a certain point, there’s no need for more. Will the “pick up artist” die that much happier having had sex with 788 partners as with 787? Epicurus would say that if isn’t going to make a big difference to your life, that’s because it doesn’t make a big difference to your life. Add to that marginal check-mark, the potential for hurting someone, or being recognized as a shallow asshat or rapist, and, well, it makes me wonder. It’d be like being a famous skeptic who is respected with fans, etc, dividing his fan-base into people who think he’s a rapist creep, and people who think he’s just a creep, and so forth – just in order to have a mediocre orgasm with some woman who’s drunk and passing out. Wouldn’t that be stupid? I hesitate to offer sex tips but I’ll merely observe that I’ve found sex to be much more fun with a conscious, enthusiastic, creative, partner, who I can share a laugh and a snuggle with, afterward, instead of having to clean up the vomit and hide the evidence. Well, I am assuming, there, because I’ve never experienced the latter kind of sexual encounter. But it doesn’t sound very fun at all, and – even if I were inclined to – I couild hardly brag about it afterward, except to my creepy rapey friends. And that’s another issue: if you’re the kind of guy who becomes a “pick up artist” you’re going to almost certainly wind up having no other guys to hang out with, other than creeps. It’s like being a racist – you are either (wisely) constantly biting your tongue and hiding your hate and feeling like a coward, or you’re … whispering your hate in a dark basement with other creepy cowardly racists. Not fun.
I could have shortened this comment to, “who’d want to be a ‘pick up artist’ because your friends are all going to be like Vox Day and if you have any sense of self-worth you’ll hate yourself for what you become,” I suppose.
They spent $3000 to listen to this. That’s fucked up, scary, and sad. Hell, if you just wanted to have sex without wanting to having to seduce someone, you could spend a lot less than $3000 to hire an escort or sex worker.
Marcus Ranum, YOU should be giving the seminars at $3000 a pop.
And brett says? The problem with hiring an escort or sex worker is that if you abuse them, hurt them, do horrible demeaning things to them, they have people – typically large and brutal men – who will punish you, maybe even kill you, for damaging their merchandise. THAT’s why these assholes don’t go for the rentals – they realize they’ll be on the hook for the damage they plan on doing. Far better to just take something anonymously, sort of like stealing a car. You get your jollies and then you just dump it and move on. No harm, no foul – for YOU.
Besides, the point of being a “pick up artist” is that you never pay for it. You convince them to give it to you for free. Because you’re the “pick up artist.”
Ophelia, this toxic little trilby model is taking his show on the road – to Australia. I’d prefer he was kept the fuck out of my country altogether as he’s a clear risk to the safety and security of others but, failing that, there’s a change.org petition asking the Como Hotel in Melbourne to cancel his booking. #takedownjulienblanc
https://www.change.org/p/the-como-melbourne-hotel-cancel-julien-blanc-s-seminar-takedownjulienblanc
I’ve never understood this idiotic male quest for vaginal access. Not everyone’s as extremist as this ghastly little two-fisted wanker but even some quite mild pick-up artists I’ve known have pouted like toddlers if they didn’t “score”. Smashing a few pints with your mates sucks that much, does it? Thanks mate, I’m flattered. How about you just go out by yourself next time? Oh, you need a wingman? Why don’t you buy an inflatable one online and stop using me as chum?
Anyway, the first 28 seconds of the video was enough to make me ashamed that I have XY chromosomes. This guy wants to you have detailed contingencies in all directions regarding where to go after the bar, what after-hours joints are open, how to get her in your house, in your room, out of her clothes, what to say if her friends come home, what to do if she’s not ready to leave when you are (spoiler: in all cases, ignore what she wants and act like an arrogant domineering fuckstick), etc. It’s about targeting her and anticipating all her defensive manouevres until you can lock on and release your payload. It’s not about the actual act of sex – well, it is, in a most purely perfunctory manner – it’s about winning. Proving you’re “smarter” than a “lesser” animal. Hunting. Identifying your prey, stalking it and running it down to the point of helpless exhaustion so you can finish it off without a fight. Y’know, exactly like a predator.
The most pathetic part about his multiple contingency strategy is this: if you need to have a plan B, C and D through Z to cover every possible attempt your quarry might make at resistance or escape, you’ve failed at a key component of human interaction. You have taken all the actual, legitimate, proper, honest goddamn fun out of meeting, talking, flirting and hooking up and turned it into fucking Call of Duty.
I’m grateful that Ophelia posted the clip of this little rat, though. Because it made me travel back down memory lane, to when I was at a boring high school party and sat over by the record player and pulled out “Pale Fire” which I was reading at the time. And about 20 minutes later a woman walked by, did a double-take, saw I was 4/5 of the way through, and said “I always thought that was his best.” And I agreed, and 20 minutes later we were on the porch (where we could hear each other without shouting) discovering a shared love of Conrad and I was promising I’d give the Karamazovs one more try… I never did finish that one. In fact, she asked me about it when we had dinner in Boston 2 weeks ago – she’s a full professor now, with 2 kids, chair of the department, all that and a cancer survivor. Every time I’m in Boston, we get together and measure out the changes in the courses of our lives, and there’s always a lot to laugh about, and sometimes I promise I’ll try the Karamazovs one more time. The book reviewing circle on the porch, with Led Zeppelin blasting in the background at the high school party, was the summer of 1978. The Joy Of Sex had come out a few years earlier and she gave me a copy for Christmas that year, and I promised to read it, too, and solemnly kept that promise. I’ve been so lucky, so damn lucky, that she taught me this thing: you should only fuck your friends.
Did not watch the whole thing, but what I saw reminds me more of the motivational speeches and word games that I used to see when I attempted sales. It’s all about the numbers game (as I think someone mentioned a previous post on this topic). The rejections don’t matter, water of one’s proverbial back, just keep trying until you succeed.
Guys, don’t do that.
I gave my virginity to a woman who wanted me. Back in ’74. As sad and short as my sexual history has been, I can be overwhelmingly grateful that I escaped this social/cultural/sexual plague.
The space between men and women seems to have been irremediably poisoned by thes guys. In college, I actually new one of the founders of NLP, the quack psychology that permeates the PUA culture. He was a lying, manipulative, asshole. Later escaped a murder conviction by a hair’s breadth. But he’s a wealthy public figure now and probably doesn’t lack for victims.
@4 Hank-Says: agreed with every jot and tittle of your comment, but at some level, he’s just getting a paycheck. like those Christian preachers who go out drinkin’ and whorin’ as soon as the preachin’ is purt near done. It’s the guys in the audience who give me the heebie-jeebies even more. They could join Match.com for $14.99 per month. They could volunteer for all sorts of things, and volunteer populations tend to be about 70 percent women (man alive, if I hadn’t been in a lovely monogamous relationship, the times I could have had working at The March of Dimes and at Christmas In April and for the Kerry and Gore campaigns!). They could join a gym for about $60 per month (not to be shallow, but being slimmer and fitter is an attractive thing to be). They could go for a little therapy, pricey in an HMO, but let’s say every two weeks with a $49 co-pay, or $100 per month. They could buy some new threads at Kohl’s, $19 for shirts, $29 for trousers. They could adopt a puppy and walk it every night at the local park (and I know, the reason shouldn’t be to meet chicks, but my point is that doing things that bring you into fun casual interactions with fellow humans are good things to contemplate). They could go out with some co-workers and buy a round or two and ask, say, what would be the best way to go about politely asking Sandra in Accounting out on a date. But instead they spend a month’s salary to learn from a Total Dick how to be a Total Dick. What went wrong in their lives for them to choose THIS way to spend their pay, and THIS way to be less lonely? Julian Blanc is just a snake oil salesman — it’s his constant clientele who make me cringe for the societies that are producing these Shitbags-In-Training.
@8, anbheal:
Absolutely. E-dating, gym, therapy, new threads: I’m positive we could each think of three thousand better things to spend $3k on than listening to this arsehole teach you how to misogyny for sex for three hours.
This popped out:
I can tell you from personal experience that this works. When my now 13 year-old beagle Chilli was a brand new seven-week old birthday present, Dr Wifey and I would take her down the street when we ran errands. I’d wait outside shops while Doc went in, often holding Chilli in one hand. People, mostly women and children ranging from preschool to teen, would approach and ask to pat her and coo and make a fuss, because hey – PUPPY! And beagle pups in particular have this amazing ability to turn any adult human into a gibbering mess. A few quick pats would invariably start a chat and leave all concerned smiling and in a good mood. Of course Doc would then return with a raised eyebrow and make jokes about how much she regretted buying me a freakin’ chick magnet for my birthday…
One undeniable major fringe benefit to their companionship is that people will simply gravitate, unbidden, toward you. It’s not just the “adorable animal” factor, it’s that when people see you caring for/bonding with a small creature they tend to make generally positive assumptions about your character, often subconsciously. You don’t even have to say anything – dogs are a great ice-breaker in that way, because they inspire other people to break the ice for you (awesome for me with my various social issues). “Hey, can I pat your dog?” has started many a great conversation with strangers. Were I single and wanting meet people, I’d happily hit the beach, high street, parks etc and take advantage of the proven human-attracting side-effects of dog custodianship – and you know, I wouldn’t want to date someone who had a problem with dogs. My dog would be a crucial part of the *ahem* vetting process 😀
Anyway, first and foremost, disclaimer: get a dog (adopt – which is what I’ll do next time – or source from a reputable breeder you have researched if you want a purebred) because you like dogs. If you’re getting a dog just to pick up chicks, NO. BAD! *swat*
I never understood the mindset that having sex with more women = better. I always thought it was better sex = better.
I mean what’s the end goal here? I don’t get it. Why not have a woman who you can have a trusting relationship with, and therefore can do all sorts of weird experimental shit to each other? Who wants to have sex for the first time over and over again? The first time is going to be the worst, because you don’t know each other’s bodies.
It seems to me like they’re so obsessed with ‘the game’ that everything else is an afterthought, including what they’re playing for. It’s the manipulation and social dominance that is the appeal, rather than the sex or socializing.
I don’t think they just want to fuck something. Then they would just masturbate.
Oh, lord, this too:
Yes! I’m sure many people have had a Sandra in Accounting in their lives, someone they admired from a distance but weren’t sure how to approach. Well, try asking a mutual friend or acquaintance for advice, arrange a group outing that includes them and chat to them in that context and always check first if they’re available. I know very well that talking to humans can be hard, but I’m kind of flabbergasted that so many guys would spew thousands listening to a guy who does literally everything bass-ackwards WRONG.
Behaving like Blanc is a surefire way to get yourself a reputation as a user/abuser/loser (or worse) and thus marginalise yourself. You’ll make it that much harder to meet anyone you might actually care about and want to spend more than an orgasm with. You’ll create a feedback loop where your shitty behaviour makes people distrust and avoid you, making you try harder in your “game”, making you fail more, fail harder, alienate yourself further and more deeply entrench whatever toxic attitudes you might have, making you more determined just to “win” at any cost, further lowering others’ opinions of you, etc.
In other words, play like a Blanc and you’ll end up a Shermer.
@10 doublereed:
Oh no, sex is a contact sport for them. Pin your opponent for as long it takes to ejaculate, then bound out of the ring with arms raised in triumph, then hit the showers, big fella. BOO-YA! *ass slap*
Besides, their masturbatory needs are more than catered for verbally.
Regarding my #4:
WIN!
The Como Melbourne has cancelled Blanc’s abuse seminar. Say thanks here: https://www.facebook.com/TheComoMelbourne
Also, who knew Blanc called his penis-insertion system “Real Social Dynamics”? That’s the kind of innocuous-sounding self-serving bullshit title that fundie gay-hate groups and racists give themselves.
All RIGHT.
@Hank_Says
I wish it was that simple. But there are other variables. The friends, family, and social allies of these people. The friends and family don’t want to believe that the person they know can be like this, or they are like this too. The social allies are people like this that cooperate with one another knowingly and unknowingly in order to create social patterns that make some of this work. I’m sure there are other actors that I’m not thinking of too.
Yeah it looks bad from here, but when there are more like them acting socially supporting while this stuff happens things change. There is a reason that religion makes people do things that seem insane, social memory processes are powerful.
I have a ridiculously handsome Great Dane. He seriously stops traffic and I have probably met 100 new people a month just because they want to say “hi” to this amazing dog. Zeus makes people smile just to see him. And it’s so much easier talking to people when they want to talk to me.
I think, if I were in any way interested (and single), I could probably make far more genuine connections with attractive people just talking to them about my awesome dog than through street harrassment or trying to game them. But then genuine connections aren’t the fast lane to getting laid, so maybe I’m missing some point, somewhere.
Brony: totally. I didn’t think of that. The social investments people make can be very significant, even before they throw $3k and three hours down the toilet and sit in a room full of like-minded stuntees in the belief that some browizard can help them level up and do more penising.
On that, I think I made an error comparing pickupbro culture to Call of Duty. Obtaining sex for a guy like Blanc and his thralls is much more like a RPG: a self-created hero mounts epic raids on bosses (women) in order to disable them long enough to get their treasure (vaginas). Herobro must use all his skills and spells and buffs and special attacks (and sometimes the assistance of wingbros in a team raid) to circumvent the boss’s defences and gain brief access to all her loot. And brief it must be: he can’t take it with him as it’s attached to the boss, so once he’s had his fun and allocated his new haul of XP, it’s off to another dungeon to look for another boss. He could always return to that first boss and defeat her again but, to many herobros, raiding a boss a second time is less of a challenge and gives negligible XP (plus they already know what the loot is). Although (and this is perhaps more likely) – based on that boss’s experience with him, she might’ve levelled up herself in the meantime and become impervious to his tricks.
@ Hank_Says
I’m not sure that analogy is accurate.
An example of such a situation is when someone says something really offensive and sexist and a woman present complains. The offender says they were “just joking” and other people like the offender present go along with the joke excuse and try to apply other social pressure to make the the story of what happened. Fixing that requires siding with the person who was offended and keeping her message part of the story going forward. So here a particular woman is not getting worn down, tricked, or otherwise manipulated into sex, but it does reinforce a social pattern of ignoring women who are offended.
These problems are not just individual attempts to “get past anyone’s defenses”. They are also the maintenance of social behavior designed to make women more receptive to submitting, ignore complaints and emotional language from women, undermine female authority, remove female autonomy, and other things that would help someone that treated sex like a predator and prey relationship.
anbheal:
“Shitbags-In-Training.”
A great business name. I suggest you register it before someone else grabs it.
😉
@13 Hank_Says
As opposed to “Complex Social Dynamics”
/mathjoke
As of today, it looks like Blanc has given up on Australia, and left the country. Good riddance. Pity others are going to wind up with his garbage though. Hopefully he takes this latest experience as a cue for some much needed introspection. Won’t be holding my breath though.
Aaaaaaand…
Visa cancelled.
🙂 🙂 🙂