Seduction gets the academic treatment

(Warning: Long, but probably worth a read. Even if just for the controversy)

There’s one thing about the following story I found disturbing, but before I get to it I better give you the background. A psychology student from the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany recently completed his master’s dissertation. The topic of study: “The techniques used in seduction”. The thesis (called The Science of Seduction) has yet to be published, I’d love to read it when it’s released. But in the meantime, the results of his study caused a bit of a stir.

Really, it was only a matter of time before the subject of seduction became a matter for academia. I’m not talking about how attraction evolved or how human mating occurs, or how society affects our sex lives or the neurology of arousal. All these and more have been the subject of academic study for a long time.

No, instead PhD student Andreas Baranowksi looked at seduction as practiced by today’s students of seduction, rating the effectiveness of the methods used by the seduction community. As well as the effect of using seduction methods on the participants. A fine idea in general, applying a dose of scientific scrutiny to gauge the success of seduction techniques is a good thing.

So what was the study and its results?

Well, he recruited 23 women and 17 men for a session devoted to flirting skills. They learned principles of “evolutionary psychology”. In other words, this guy hired a pickup gooroo to teach them seduction skills.

Men were taught to use an indirect approach (instead of “I find you attractive,” ask “What band is that?”),  giving women a chance to evaluate you before investing in you. They were told to make the women work a bit (as we value more the things that are scarce and that we have to work for). And, they were shown how to use body language to convey high social status.

Women were taught (by the way I love this!) that if you’re just looking for sex, you can simply go up and ask – works in 75 percent of cases. And they were shown how to use body language to invite men to talk to you.

The outcome was that both men and women improved. Results were gauged on the amount of numbers men collected per hour and the number of drink invitations women received – men got more numbers women got more drink invitations. OK, so it won’t exactly pass the serious scientific scrutiny that would get it published in a psychology journal, but it’s interesting. Men went from 1.07 phone numbers per hour on average to 3.67, while women upped their drink-invite average from 1.65 to 3.1.

The study went on to analyse the participants satisfaction in general, which is more apt for the field. It’s only us (the general public) who are interested in the sexy outcome of the seduction side.

According to Baranowski, participants felt a certain amount of guilt as their dating skills improved. He suggests that most people who are involved in “pickup” would have certain moral misgivings about it. I’ll cover that in a moment but first, I was delighted to read in one article that Mr Baranowski said that “pick-up artists” work with invalid and dubious theories.

Why was I pleased, I’ve spent almost a decade in the seduction community? Have I been working with “pseudo-scientific theories and false statements”? If you look back to the content of the brief course offered to the men in the study, it won’t come as a shock to many of you (this is a seduction site after all) that the material the students were exposed to – approaching indirectly, high-status body language, getting her to work – is deeply flawed. Pseudo scientific, yup! But, more importantly it’s complete crap.

Seduction community members know THAT IS NOT seduction, but it passes as seduction because the mainstream media (TV – Mystery et al, books – Neil Strauss, Richard la Ruina etc.) and commercially successful pickup companies (PUA Training, Love Systems etc.) have perpetrated that is how to get women.

On the one hand you could say the mainstream media is simply out of touch with seduction – making points about indirect approaches, status theories and making women “work for it”. Things that are not in any way a part of seduction, at least not to anyone who is successful. On the other hand you could say the most commercially and conversationally appealing aspects of seduction are the pickup “tricks” that revolve around theories of status. Whatever the cause, there is a broadly incorrect understanding about seduction to anyone outside the community.

If I was still meeting women with the type of nonsense proliferated a few years ago by Mystery and his proteges (and almost all of the established companies), I’d also feel a certain incongruity at best and “guilt!” at worst. Not to mention I’d be pretty unsuccessful too. Four numbers (almost) in an hour is what the participants reached. Ok, aside from the fact we all know numbers aren’t a good gauge of success, there was clear improvement in the students before and after the teaching.

For an answer as to why, I’ll turn again to the study’s organizer. According to Mr Baranowski, although the flirting industry’s theories are wrong, they can have beneficial effects. In psychological terms, the point is that men schooled in these strategies are more prepared when they meet women and more confident of success, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yup, that happens too. Absolutely there’s a placebo effect, especially if you’re exposed to it for the first time.

But there’s way more to it than that. To me there’s so much amazing stuff to be learned in the art of seduction. Skills (yes skills) that don’t trick people, but make men the real deal with women. 60 Years of Challenge, Aaron Sleazy, the Seduction Community newsletter and other resources that reflect the true centre of seduction – ideas that empower men and women. But, it’s the Mysterys and RSDs and Love Systems whose commercial success has stifled seduction. Their approach was flawed from the start, the foundations they teach are sandcastles… and the tide’s in!

But I fear the publicity surrounding an academic study in this area could be enough to swing another generation of men towards the completely useless and ineffective approach to meeting and seducing women.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.