So a few days ago, a friend of mine made fun of me for writing for our local Men’s Health, on how men need to care about everyday sexism. He showed me a post they published about to “how to get a girl’s number”. I read and Tweeted about it.
http://t.co/6NtuFKip1o Eh @MensHealthZA has some tips for getting a woman's number & once again I think such "advice" is a little creepy.
— Tauriq Moosa (@tauriqmoosa) January 25, 2015
As almost always, these sorts of articles come off as creepy blatant or glorified pick-up artist bullshit. I explained a little.
See, it's this sort of antagonism which I don't like. pic.twitter.com/Vu9VIC82QF
— Tauriq Moosa (@tauriqmoosa) January 25, 2015
This morning I received some messages from the official Men’s Health (South Africa) Twitter account.
@tauriqmoosa You're right. That article IS classic PUA bullshit. We're wrong and we're taking it down.
— Men's Health ZA (@MensHealthZA) January 26, 2015
@tauriqmoosa In fact we'd like to purge our archives totally of the PUA taint. Dating advice is fine. Manipulation is not.
— Men's Health ZA (@MensHealthZA) January 26, 2015
I found this to be fantastic, as did (almost) everyone who saw the Tweet – including South Africa’s biggest women’s site.
Awesome RT @MensHealthZA: @tauriqmoosa We'd like to purge our archives totally of the PUA taint. Dating advice is fine. Manipulation is not.
— Women24.com (@Women24) January 26, 2015
Applause to @MensHealthZA for taking anti-PUA stance. We'd date YOU just the way you are, without tricks and manipulation. You rock, guys.
— Women24.com (@Women24) January 26, 2015
Men’s Health chose to do this; no hand was forced. For them, indeed, it was in keeping with what they’re trying to do.
We are into health, in the larger sense of the word. Having a manipulative pick-up artist mentality is not healthy. For anybody.
— Men's Health ZA (@MensHealthZA) January 26, 2015
I did nothing except Tweet my concern: I had no influence on this decision. All responsibility – whether for praise or blame – must go to MH itself and this ethical editorial decision. Indeed, they recognised my point when they replied to a hyperbolic “nanny state” concern.
Don’t know about you, but even this small ray of hope is something to at least be glad about in an otherwise shitty, shitty year – that’s only just begun.
PART II: I respond to a dude who’s not very happy about this.
UPDATE: There’s a Slate write-up from online friend, Amanda Marcotte.
After the Wikipedia news, this was good to see.
What a win! This is good news indeed.
Tauriq, I was introduced a few years back (maybe 10 years or so) to the PUA community, and I initially rejected it as manipulation. As I was busy arguing the point with the friends of mine that supported the idea, I was simultaneously introduced to the idea of “social dynamics”. Over time, I began to realize that pick-up artistry is basically a mastery of social dynamics, used toward one specific end – having sex with women.
In other words, the mastery of social dynamics does not necessarily need to be used in such a way. But by PUA’s, it is.
Before I really grasped all of this conceptually, I began to defend the PUA culture as valuable to guys who simply couldn’t understand why they were unsuccessful with women. Of course, it was difficult when all around me were examples of PUAs engaging in behavior that was clearly exploitative and degrading to women. The contempt that many PUAs had for women was undenyable, but I couldn’t get past my convictions that *understanding* the behavior of women and their responses was something worth investigating.
And this wasn’t something taken as a matter of faith – social dynamics are not random, they aren’t outside the scope of investigation, they aren’t equally understood by everyone, and some guys are simply better at it than others. The proof is abundant. Those who understand social dynamics reap tremendous social rewards. In fact, I’d argue that President Obama is what they call a “natural” – a guy for whom navigating social situations is as natural as playing piano was for Mozart, or as making people laugh was for Robin Williams.
Among those “naturals” and those who have learned the nuances of social dynamics, there are those who exploit women and those who don’t. Obama, for example, is a guy who uses his mastery to draw people toward him in ways that most people can’t.
This is important – mastery of social dynamics can have many advantages and it can be used in a variety of ways. Unfortunately, it can also be used to exploit people. Salesmen use a mastery of social dynamics to exploit hapless automobile shoppers. Televangelists use it to get people to send them money. PUAs use it to get women into bed.
But that doesn’t mean that a mastery of social intelligence is a a bad thing. It just means that such a mastery can be used to exploit people.
So here’s my questions: If it can be demonstrated that the mastery of social dynamics is a teachable skill, wouldn’t you agree that it is a skill worth learning? A skill worth cultivating?
(Note: I’m speaking of a mastery of social dynamics – not pick-up artistry. I have nothing to do with that and don’t concern myself with it anymore.)
All skills have an ethical dimension, though depending on the skill in question it many it may not come up very much. However, those that involve interacting with other people have a very prominent ethical aspect, and “social intelligence” is one such skill.
However, PUA is not an aspect of social intelligence. A real “master” of social dynamics does not need or want it, they can make friends and interest people without surreptitiously manipulating and antagonising them, and can certainly use their skills productively and professionally to grow into a stable and well-rounded individual, traits which will also make them more attractive.
PUAs lack these skills and are uninterested in developing them or any other aspect on themselves. They think they have found the cheat codes to skip past all the usual personal development and social interaction (ie, the rest on life) in pursuit of their short-sighted goals, and think they must be dependent on them. That dependence may be part of why they react so strongly to criticism of it.
Some do, some don’t. Skill mastery has very little to do with character. For example, not all martial arts masters are like Mr. Miaggi. Some are like the Cobra Kai.
Yeah, I can agree with that. Pretty much all the aspiring PUA I’ve known have been guys that were so socially lost that they would do just about anything to rise above the level of “Average Frustrated Chump”. They find acceptance in the PUA community the way others find acceptance in church, AA, or Amway.
But I could probably list dozens of insights I’ve Iearned from the PUA community that helped me understand social situations better than I did before. I’m talking about stuff that has nothing to do with manipulating women, rather understanding their responses.
In fact, if I had to name one single point of education for which I have the PUA community to thank it would be this – better social calibration and interpretation of other people’s responses.
If you’ve ever been in a social situation, maybe in a group of people, and you’re having what you think is a pleasant conversation with new people, and one or more of them begins responding to you in ways that baffle you (maybe treating you unkindly, or maybe subtle microaggressions), then you can appreciate how frustrating it would be to go through your whole life that way… experiencing these responses but having no clue how to interpret them, how to account for them, or how to respond to them.
To have the curtain pulled back and start to understand why people act the way they act… territorialism, basic social interactions, alpha male behavior, etc. is more valuable than I can describe. It feels like you’ve literally been handed a key, and opened a door you’ve always been wishing you could open.
But yes… there’s no doubt that the PUA community is saturated with vicious people. I never actually tried it, although I found the idea of empowerment to be very enticing. It was never in the cards for me. I have no ability to be disingenuous.