Pickup artist

A pickup artist (commonly abbreviated PUA) is a person who practices finding, attracting, and seducing sexual partners. Such a person purportedly abides by a certain system deemed effective by that community in their attempts to seduce partners.

The use of pickup in this context, slang for making a casual acquaintance with a stranger in anticipation of sexual relations, dates from at least World War II, as attested by antiprostitution posters.^[1][2] The phrase was also popularized by the 1970 book How to Pick Up Girls by Eric Weber,^[3] Pick-Up Times, a short-lived 1970s magazine, and the 1987 semi-autobiographical romantic comedy The Pick-up Artist, written and directed by James Toback.^[4] More recent works of pickup artist culture include Neil Strauss's book, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, and the 2007 VH1 reality television series, The Pickup Artist, starring the pickup artist Mystery (Erik von Markovik). The pickup artist Roosh V has self-published 14 books describing techniques for seducing women.^[5] According to Salon, such books are the "cash cow" of the pickup industry.^[6]

The term pickup artist is also associated with the seduction community, a heterosexual male subculture which strives to improve sexual and romantic abilities with women. Routines and gambits are developed to stimulate purported "attraction switches," often combined with techniques derived from an alleged form of hypnosis called neuro-linguistic programming.^[7] Members aim to improve their seductive capabilities through the development of various lifestyles as well as typing women.^[8] The culture surrounding pickup has spawned an entire industry servicing those who want to improve their social and seduction skills with consultations and in-field training.

Pickup artists receive mixed to negative responses from the press and general public, with many regarding both the practice and theory as immoral, sexist and ineffective. For example, Strategic Lothario, a newcomer to the pickup scene, has been accused by readers of his books of lacking empathy for women and using manipulative techniques to seduce women.^{[9] [10]}

Pickup artists have also been parodied, as in the March 2011 The Scott Mills Show. BBC Radio 1 debated Neil Strauss' The Game on many shows.^[11]

Pickup is often divided into different styles, referred to as "outergame," "innergame," "direct game," and "indirect game." ^[12]

Psychologist Dr. Petra Boynton has stated that there is "no evidence of effectiveness" for any claims of pickup artists.^[13] Research by Nathan Oesch of the University of Oxford Department of Experimental Psychology, however, confirmed attraction and seduction principles, as described in Strauss' books on the subject, do have a factual basis in social, physiological and evolutionary psychology.^[14]

Despite primarily being a male movement, there are also female pick-up artists who use similar techniques to seduce men. ^[15]

See also

• Dating
• Dating coach
• Manosphere
• Cosmopolitan (magazine)
• Relationship counseling

Further Reading

• Amanda Marcotte, a blogger for the magazine The American Prospect has suggested a link between PUA ideology and the Santa Barbara Massacre of May 23 in this article ^[16]

References

General