The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists
By Neil Strauss
Regan Books
PB, 464 pgs. US$29.95
ISBN: 0-0605-5473-8

The metrosexual as lion

By Bernard Chapin
web posted January 9, 2006

There comes a sorry time in every man’s single life when he
discovers that the guys he used to dismiss with the title of
“cheeseball” happen to be very good at scoring with women.
One’s reactions go through the usual phases: denial becomes
irritation, irritation turns into acceptance, and acceptance begets
forbidden thoughts like, “maybe, just maybe, wearing big Bono
glasses, costume jewelry, and a magenta cowboy hat will give
me an edge in picking up chicks.”

Once one counter-establishes that such attire, just like steroids,
hard drugs, and listening to rap, is mutually exclusive with being a
legitimate person, then it becomes fairly easy to return to an
existence of production and authenticity. Yet, the pickup artist,
or PUA as he is known in Neil Strauss’s book, The Game:
Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, never casts
aspersions on anything that works. Any negative impact on his
identity can be written off as a cost of doing business. The PUA
would regard strapping seven watches to his forearm and sliding
into leather pants as “peacocking” which is as endemic to their
practices as the paying off of lawyers is to Microsoft’s.

The pickup artist is an entrepreneur whose sole trade is the
acquisition of polyamorous relationships which he then
exchanges for increased self-esteem. That no justifiable feelings
of self-worth can derive from accomplishments of which one is
only vicariously a part –i.e. they like a you who does not
exist—is not something which occurs to him. His horizon ends
with what he can see before him, and, oftentimes, the only
person seduced, in the long-term, is himself.

I approached The Game with more than an open mind; indeed, I
had every intention of loving it. Unfortunately, I was disillusioned
from the start. This is the memoir of a New York Times writer
who enters the internet lounges of the seduction community, and
soon becomes an advocate, devotee, and poster-child for the
game. Previously, he was a nice guy or an Average Frustrated
Chump (AFC). Strauss attends seminars and meets his heroes
one to one. Within a short time, he is Lothario, and not long
thereafter, the writer, known by the nickname of Style, is
regarded by some as the greatest PUA alive. Certainly, this is
not your average tale and its novelty makes it difficult to put
down.

However, a funny thing happens on the way to the condom
wholesale shop because relating to these men is a serious
challenge. Even if one admires them for bedding silicone queens,
actresses, spoiled rich girls, strippers, and sexpots of all
persuasions their innate qualities make those of us who would
otherwise be their natural constituency rather nauseous.

For one thing, these fellows are not manly in any way, shape or
form. Strauss himself is admittedly a Metrosexual, but that may
be the most flattering way to describe him as the following
observation makes clear: “It is taboo among men to picture their
best friends naked or having sex, because then they might find
themselves aroused–and we all know what that means.” He says
this of men telling sex stories to their friends, which, for the great
majority of us, never results in images of one’s buddy at all.
Usually, we place ourselves into their role which arouses us for
other reasons entirely. As for what Strauss’s imagination does
when is told such stories…oh well.

Another problem with The Game is that the pervasive elitism
long associated with the New York Times is thematically present
in Strauss’s account. A long-time associate of his states, in
regard to Style’s new player mentor, “I mean, he’s totally
superficial. We went to the Latin School of Chicago. We went to
Vassar College. This is not the kind of guy who can fit in at these
places. He’s not one of us.” Strauss readily agrees with him, but
most of us who did not attend private school and regard Vassar
as being synonymous with castration, will be put-off by such
commentary.

Furthermore, the peacocking of these PUAs is decidedly hen-
like. They wear platform shoes, wigs, fake piercings, frilly shirts,
purple furry vests, and even paint their nails. That the women
they target are attracted to such trappings makes one wonder
why they bother with men in the first place. It seems to me they
could find more alluring specimens of femininity and fashion
within their own bathroom stalls.

Strauss is guilty of what I term the “I know I’m bad so those
unlike me are good” fallacy. This flawed outlook is the rationale
behind political programs like affirmative action, Title IX
mandated discrimination against men, the cult of anti-
Americanism, and the queer habit of feminized males referring to
their own kind as “pigs.” When Strauss includes super-sized font
quotations from the likes of nefarious radical feminists like Gloria
Steinem, Betty Friedan, Carol Gilligan, and Catharine
MacKinnon, he destroys the legitimacy of his work. His reason
for citing these hate mongers is unfathomable. Perhaps Strauss
believed that kissing up to knuckle-draggers like Steinem would
somehow make his work more acceptable politically correct
sensibilities, but such ministrations are pointless. For a man to
write anything positive about sex without love makes one a
pariah to the social engineers manning the heights of our cultural
slagheap.

One comes away from The Game with the impression that Neil
Strauss is a man who doesn’t believe in anything except for
instant gratification. He wants to make his memoir more
meaningful by pretending that all men are like him, yet his flaws
are characterological and not a result of genitalia. As a means of
repenting, he implies that women are superior to men. That he
could make such a statement is astounding in light of his
perpetual manipulation of the privileged sex via the use of magic
tricks, fugazi personality tests, and insult as a road to establishing
rapport. One must ask a rather obvious question here, if women
are more deep and thoughtful than men then why do they fall in
love with joyboy poseurs like Strauss and his gang? No
explanation is offered by the narrator. It doesn’t take a
psychologist, or even an insightful gerbil, to wonder how an
individual titillated by the alleged effects of tooth shape upon
personality could be superior to chimpanzees let alone a person
who acknowledged that there was a world outside of their own
daily activities. Men can easily be persuaded to spend a night in
a roach infested room just to experience the pleasures of a
woman’s body, but getting him to fall in love as a result of magic
tricks…well, that’s about as likely as my Detroit Lions ever
going to the Super Bowl.

In the final, and unavoidably depressing, analysis, one must admit
that the parlor games and primal peacocking that these pickup
artists engage in is very effective in the procurement of women.
While I did not have any affinity for the narrator, I find his tale
completely believable. The Game depicts much more about the
nature of woman than most of the courses offered on sexuality in
our universities and every single talking head who currently jams
our airwaves. Woman, that great tributary whose presence and
sublime angles spawned artistic masterpieces and achievements
since the beginning of time, is a creature with a psyche forever
incapacitated by its own transcendent status and power. Yet,
despite the compelling victories of the PUA, most of us cannot
engage in his behaviors because to do so would mean the
termination of ourselves. By the end of The Game such an
eventuality is even apparent to Neil Strauss who decides to retire
his nickname, his snakeskins, and a library full of player manuals
in hopes of rediscovering himself.

Bernard Chapin is a writer living in Chicago. He can be reached
at bchapafl@hotmail.com.

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