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Pick-up artistry: from meaningful relations to hedonism.

by Jonathan Shockley

 

Much of the male possessiveness women complain about in relationships occurs due to the man's failure to realize his polygamous potentialities. The male doesn't realize these potentialities due to

1) his lack of education in attracting women
2) the female's more discriminatory, less polygamous sexual tendencies.
3) The alienated, materialistic, work-crazed nature of our society

Even within the context of 3), if males learned to activate female triggers of attraction, they might partially overcome this possessive insecurity.

As a result, the male might drift toward either

a) hedonistic polygamy
b) more meaningful, loving polygamy
c) a combination of both, or
d) monogamy with the female he chooses among his many choices.

Some indigenous societies show exactly that. And in that less alienated environment, nature seems to show a genetic tendency toward female possessiveness and male hedonism. The former has to do with the female desire to maintain a provider and protector. The latter with the male desire to spread his genes--an activity which may divert protection and resources. Males and females therefore have a conflict of interest. And in spite of the patriarchy still present in many parts of our society, females have, in this conflict, succeeded in prevailing over males in certain areas.

For example at a bar called Cafe Royale, here in SF, a female the other day sang a tragic-sounding song about a woman settling for a "typical loser", "half the man she could've gotten" etc. Yet a man would be considered sexist or even misogynistic if he used similar words to sing about a situation that's the other way around--if he talked about a friend settling for a "typical bitch" or "half the woman he could've gotten" etc. In fact, I know men in their early 30s who haven't had sex, much less a relationship in years--who would be glad to have choices from which to settle, who would be glad to have the actual choice to wrongly settle for someone who is "half the woman" they could've gotten--who would be glad to have sex as easily as women can have it when they get horny.

And yet the much worse and pervasive male situation not only doesn't deserve a tragic-sounding song, but in fact, as I said, would be considered inappropriate--perhaps just worthy of a comical song. And I may point out that we can also find parallels between this woman who fails to properly choose among her potential suitors, and a male who fails to approach (or successfully approach) women. Because these two actions represent the strengths of each sex--and the failure of the latter we consider less tragic than that of the former.

Generally speaking, males can approach as many females as they want, so long as they remain willing to put the effort and withstand rejection and approach anxiety. On the other hand females don't generally approach males, so can only choose from the males who choose them 1st. Yet females prefer males who do not choose them first. They prefer males who have other choices and don't show too much interest--precisely the males who project the vivid emotional life/knowledge of women that comes from experiencing their polygamous potentiality (though females want this kind of male for themselves exclusively).

Therefore, even though the male can approach as many females as he wants, the natural desiring state associated with the approach itself, will result in distress for the male, due to the large amount of rejection and approach anxiety he must endure. And his more exclusively visual initial attraction contributes to this desiring state, which women stimulate by spending 10 times more money on beauty enhancement products.

We usually understand a mask as a symbol of deception, and though women do not literally wear masks, one could argue that every small beauty enhancement represents a step in that direction.

And since males place more initial importance on looks, if the male and the female competently spend, say, $300 and 2 hours of their time enhancing their appearance, her investment will go farther than his. Now the funny thing about this is that even though her beauty enhancement increases her mate choices, it might also increase the male desiring state that women find unappealing.

In any case, we can see the hypocrisy of beauty-enhanced females criticizing male behavioral enhancement and incompetence at the same time. Furthermore, even staunch critics of pick-up artistry, like feminist Beatrix Campbell admit that "these courses are helping men to be a bit less useless in their engagement with women, using charm and a bit of ingenuity to seduce."

If one adds to this the fact that women collectively and constantly analyze their interactions with men (with the clear purpose of establishing control and furthering their own interests) and that women generally expect men to assume a social role (e.g. approach them, say and do things that she can stringently judge etc), we can see that pick-up artistry doesn't merit the harsh criticism it has received. In fact, pick-up artistry teaches men to assume responsibility for their failure to establish a pair bond--rather than blaming and criticizing the woman.

Pick up artistry expands female choices by teaching males the polygamous potentialities that females find initially attractive, which open the door to successful and meaningful relations that the female would have rejected due to the male's initial incompetence. Of course, pick up artistry also opens the door to excessive hedonism (which would seems the counterpart of an excessive female possessiveness/desire to control the male). In any case, the fact that women place less importance than men on initial physical attraction doesn't necessarily indicate that men have a less virtuous sexuality. Obviously, both males and females value psychological traits in long term relationships, but we've all heard some women saying "You just want me for my looks" or "You just wants to f--- me".

The truth is that though psychological attributes play a more important role in initially activating wired female attraction switches, these switches do not necessarily fit a moral category. So, for example, a male may devote his life to fighting global warming or nuclear proliferation, or feeding the homeless, and women will not necessarily find him more attractive. In some cases the time devoted to these actions (or even mention of them) may in fact turn women off. Only certain behaviors (mostly related to survival and replication value) seem to elicit an initial female attraction.

I mean, do confidence, humor, playfulness, willingness to show emotion, pre-selection by other women, social respect; do these kinds of behaviors and qualities necessarily fit a moral category? Do they merit more respect than the male attraction toward physical traits? The only female attraction switch that seems to more easily fit a moral category is her attraction toward males who protect loved ones. However, the morality of this switch seems dependent on societal context (e.g. The Nazi, but good protective family man, Adolph Eichmann, might have been protected in turn by someone in his family).

In any case, a future moral society must inform its citizens (possibly in schools) about the psychology of male-female relations. This would require dispelling unscientific feminist theories that dismiss the differences between the sexes. At the same time, such an education must take into account the suffering and frustration that both males and females endure, and must encourage a compromise between the sexes in order to decide what role our genes and culture will play in relation to the spiritual awareness that remains in their background. This would seem possible only in a less hierarchical, less materialistic society where our possessive and hedonistic tendencies diminish.

 

jonathan_shockley@yahoo.com

Copyright 2010


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