History

The seduction community's origins date back to Eric Weber's 1970 book How to Pick Up Girls In the 1980s, two California self-help gurus began selling their own advice for meeting attractive women. One, who calls himself "R. Don Steele" a.k.a. 'Steel Balls', focuses on helping men over 35 meet younger women. Another, Ross Jeffries, promotes a collection of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques called "Speed Seduction" (SS). Other gurus established themselves, but lacked contacts with each other. In 1994, Lewis De Payne, then a student of Jeffries founded the newsgroup alt.seduction.fast ("ASF"). This then spawned a network of other Internet discussion forums, email lists, blogs, and sites where seduction techniques could be exchanged. As the original alt.seduction.fast became overwhelmed with spam, a group called "Learn the Skills Corporation" developed a moderated alternative known as "Moderated ASF" (commonly "mASF").

Other seduction teachers emerged with competing methods, and became known within this community as "seduction gurus" or "gurus", The emergent theories coalesced on the usenet newsgroups before being systematically taught by teachers. Two of the most notable of these new teachers were Mystery and David DeAngelo. David and Cliff of Cliffslist.com are considered to be the most independent of the seduction community. David got his start with a post to Cliffslist, with Cliff being a central force in the community. Mystery is a magician who applied many of the social skills used in stage performance to the art of seduction, creating the Mystery Method. Many of the terms used by the community like "set" and "routine" are taken from the performing arts. On 2007-08-02, Mystery, with 2 former students (Matador and J-Dog) created his own television show "The Pick Up Artist" on VH1.David DeAngelo, a former student of Ross Jeffries, is best known for a technique called 'Cocky and Funny'.

In 2005, Neil Strauss wrote The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, an exposé of the seduction community. The Game reached the New York Times Bestseller List, and popularized pickup and seduction to a broader audience, increasing the chances of pickup artists being caught when they used canned material.

The body of knowledge in the field of "pick-up" has grown exponentially in the past decade as millions of men around the globe have taken an interest in the subject. Many write up their personal experiences and construct theories of the self and of social dynamics to share with other students. The combined material has the hallmarks of an interdisciplinary field of study and promiscuously borrows concepts and terminology from other disciplines in the arts and sciences. Evolutionary biology, neurolinguistic programming, and the psychology of influence are just a few of the fields that have been mined for concepts and metaphors germane to the practice of pick-up.

Concepts

Supporters of this community typically believe that the conventional dating advice for men is fatally flawed. For example, they reject the notion that men should attempt to woo women by spending money on them (e.g. buying drinks, presents, jewelry), calling it "supplication". They also discourage flattery. They believe that physical looks are less important to women in selection of a partner than they are to men, as evidenced by top gurus who rated poorly with their looks on a Hot or Not style of website. Many members of the seduction community work on their "game" (seduction skills) by improving their understanding of female psychology, their confidence and self-esteem (termed "inner game"), and their social skills and physical appearance (physical fitness, fashion sense, grooming) ("outer game"). Many members of the community believe that one's "game" is refined through regular practice, with the idea that the abilities needed to interact with women can be improved.

The seduction community has a unique set of acronyms and jargon for describing male-female dynamics and social interaction. For example, "AFC" stands for Average Frustrated Chump (a term coined by Ross Jeffries to describe males who are clueless and incompetent with women). "AMOG" stands for "Alpha-Male Other Guy" (or Alpha-Male Of the Group): a reference to a competing male, who is usually either befriended by the PUA (Pickup artist), or, if necessary, ridiculed. Some of the concepts in the community are borrowed from other disciplines, such as the concept of social proof from the psychology of influence, and various concepts from sociobiology and evolutionary psychology (such as the term "alpha male"). Books such as The Red Queen by Matt Ridley, Sperm Wars by Robin Baker, and The Mating Mind by Geoffrey Miller are frequently cited in the community.

Practices

Approaching and opening

Pickup artists generally assume the mindset that women are passive and will not initiate, requiring men to begin any interaction by approaching them, but many have also cultivated a sensitivity to direct and indirect signals of sexual interest.

There are many different types of "approaches." Approaches can be directed towards women who are in groups, or alone, and pickup artists can approach on their own or with their wingmen. Approaching can be "direct" (in communicating sexual interest), or "indirect" (appearing indifferent towards physical intimacy). Approaching can also happen when a woman gives an "approach invitation" (abbreviated "AI"), a favorable body language signal, like eye contact or a smile. PUAs believe that reading signals like the woman touching her hair, laughing, ... (termed IOI - Indicators of Interest) and knowing when to "escalate" the interaction to more intimate levels when windows of opportunity arise are essential skills for having success of any nature. The timing of these escalations is thought to be critical because a missed window of opportunity due to tentativeness can serve to dampen attraction. Alternately, a window can be playfully skirted or even ignored to build tension, providing emotional space in which people can feel comfortable and unpressured.

"Cold approaching" occurs when the "target" has not given such a notice to the pickup artist. Pickup artists approach either verbally, or nonverbally. Nearly every pickup artist, even those most experienced, admits to feelings of "approach anxiety" when approaching women; this feeling is exacerbated the longer the approach is delayed. Initiating a conversation is called "opening," and whatever the pickup artist says while opening is called an "opener." Openers can be "canned" (prepared in advance), or improvised. Members of the seduction community often practice approaching and opening repetitively; some have done thousands of approaches. Strauss describes a pickup artist who did 125 approaches in one day.

Interacting with women

After approaching and opening, pickup artists attempt to engage the women in conversation. The moment where a woman (or group) decides that they want to continue the interaction with the pickup artist is called the "hook point" (Strauss). Members of the seduction community employ various techniques designed to develop attraction and rapport with the women they are having a conversation with (and the groups these women are in). Techniques can be "canned" (pre-scripted), or "natural" (improvised). These techniques

Include:

• "Negs," i.e. remarks, such as backhanded compliments, that are designed to actively demonstrate disinterest and "falsely disqualify" the pickup artists as potential suitors. Negs are generally advocated for attractive and very attractive women. They are intended for numerous purposes, including slightly lowering a girl’s self-esteem so she’s more vulnerable to pickup, displaying higher value, or for lowering a girl’s "bitch shield" (i.e. hostile attitude to potential suitors), etc. (associated with the Mystery Method)
• Cocky & Funny," i.e. statements that combine humor and arrogance. (developed by David DeAngelo but often used by other methods)
• Kino," i.e. physical touching. (origin: Ross Jeffries, from the word kinesthesia) Also noted in Mastering your Hidden Self, a book widely recommended for PUAs, as the word for body.
• Using routines, i.e. pre-scripted conversations, or actions.; an example would be a pickup artist telling a story (sometimes true, sometimes verbatim from a pickup guru) about himself which has been scripted in advance.
• Patterns, i.e. hypnotic language derived from sales and NLP designed to influence a woman's subconscious mind, to seduce her, or to otherwise condition her without her knowledge. Patterning can be done spontaneously though is usually completely scripted in advance. (promulgated by Ross Jeffries, Major Mark, Bishop, and many others)
• Eliciting values," i.e. finding out what is important to a person, and what they desire. Eliciting values is a technique from NLP for making patterns and other techniques more effective at influencing a person. Rather than using a canned pattern in which someone is led through a predetermined sequence of states, eliciting values uses specific sequences of questions to find out a person's "internal roadmap" that leads to a certain state, and then the pickup artist attempts to "lead" them to that state. Eliciting values is also used to screen for traits that the pickup artist is looking for in women he interacts with, and to assess compatibility if he is looking for a relationship. Alternatively, eliciting values can be used to gain rapport. (origin: Richard Bandler and John Grinder)
• AMOG destroyers," (or "AMOGing," "AMOG tactics") i.e. dealing with competing males in the group with backhanded compliments or subtle jibes, such as picking an item of clothing they are wearing and making fun of them for it. "AMOG" stands for "Alpha Male Other Guy (or Alpha Male of Group)," and "AMOG" can also be used as a verb: to "AMOG" someone. AMOG destroyers are designed to establish oneself as the dominant person in the group. A lot of AMOGing comes from simply not acknowledging the other person.(Originally developed by Owen Cook)

Different styles of pickup and seduction use different degrees of structuring interactions. For example, Mystery Method employs a high degree of structure and conceptualizes interaction with women in a series of three stages, attraction, comfort, and seduction, which are each subdivided into three stages also. At the other end of the spectrum, natural game advocates such as Juggler and Real Social Dynamics discourage pre-scripted interactions and value relating to individuals spontaneously with a general awareness of increasing intimacy.

Field Reports

Some pickup artists in the community write up "Field Reports" ("FRs") and "Lay Reports" ("LRs") detailing their experiences with women which they share on Internet forums for constructive criticism, or to serve as examples for others.