The first link said that PUA could leave people in worse shape than it found them—and Clarisse Thorn (second link) said the same.
Good point about PUA cultivating friendships between men. I’d missed that part. Still, it doesn’t do a good job of encouraging friendliness between romantic/sexual partners.
it doesn’t do a good job of encouraging friendliness between romantic/sexual partners.
Compared with… relationship advice for women? (For example: don’t call him and rarely return his calls; stop dating him if he doesn’t buy you a romantic gift for your birthday or valentine’s day; don’t see him more than once or twice a week). How much of the PUA criticism—that it helps narcissist people develop their sense of grandiosity and become emotional vampires—applies to that, too? Perhaps the narcissism is more socially acceptable for women, because… uhm… yay, women! ?
Could we agree on a gender-neutral version that literature about “success” in relationships typically does not do a good job of encouraging friendliness between romantic/sexual partners? (And of course, there are always a few exceptions.)
(Or perhaps even more generally that literature about maximizing X does not do a good job at maximizing Y?)
That’s a reasonable question. However, I have no idea to what extent women take The Rules seriously, while there’s a lot of evidence that some fraction of the men here take PUA very seriously.
How about avoiding labels completely, and asking directly about behavior? Let’s make gender-neutral or gender-reversed questions for men and women, taboo all jargon, and see how many of them will report using the given strategy.
For example: “Do you sometimes pretend to be unavailable, even if you have free time, just to make yourself more scarce?” Or: “If the person you are dating becomes too proud of themselves, do you slightly criticize them in order to bring them back to earth?”
A woman can learn gender-reversed versions of some PUA advice from a magazine or hear it from her friends; she does not have to identify with any label. And she does not have to read any specific book, because all the information is already out there. Advice for women about manipulating men is generally not shocking and controversial. “The Rules” is a book that strongly pattern-matches PUA advice (a name similar to “The Game”, simplistic bullet-point advice), which was probably intentional, to create controversy and increase sales… but it’s not like women never read the specific ideas before in other books and magazines. (Okay, this one is probably new: “Don’t Discuss The Rules with Your Therapist”.)
The first link said that PUA could leave people in worse shape than it found them—and Clarisse Thorn (second link) said the same.
Good point about PUA cultivating friendships between men. I’d missed that part. Still, it doesn’t do a good job of encouraging friendliness between romantic/sexual partners.
Compared with… relationship advice for women? (For example: don’t call him and rarely return his calls; stop dating him if he doesn’t buy you a romantic gift for your birthday or valentine’s day; don’t see him more than once or twice a week). How much of the PUA criticism—that it helps narcissist people develop their sense of grandiosity and become emotional vampires—applies to that, too? Perhaps the narcissism is more socially acceptable for women, because… uhm… yay, women! ?
Could we agree on a gender-neutral version that literature about “success” in relationships typically does not do a good job of encouraging friendliness between romantic/sexual partners? (And of course, there are always a few exceptions.)
(Or perhaps even more generally that literature about maximizing X does not do a good job at maximizing Y?)
That’s a reasonable question. However, I have no idea to what extent women take The Rules seriously, while there’s a lot of evidence that some fraction of the men here take PUA very seriously.
How about avoiding labels completely, and asking directly about behavior? Let’s make gender-neutral or gender-reversed questions for men and women, taboo all jargon, and see how many of them will report using the given strategy.
For example: “Do you sometimes pretend to be unavailable, even if you have free time, just to make yourself more scarce?” Or: “If the person you are dating becomes too proud of themselves, do you slightly criticize them in order to bring them back to earth?”
A woman can learn gender-reversed versions of some PUA advice from a magazine or hear it from her friends; she does not have to identify with any label. And she does not have to read any specific book, because all the information is already out there. Advice for women about manipulating men is generally not shocking and controversial. “The Rules” is a book that strongly pattern-matches PUA advice (a name similar to “The Game”, simplistic bullet-point advice), which was probably intentional, to create controversy and increase sales… but it’s not like women never read the specific ideas before in other books and magazines. (Okay, this one is probably new: “Don’t Discuss The Rules with Your Therapist”.)