Summary: Revolutions begin in the shadows, only emerging when they grow too large to ignore. So it is with “Game”, the 21st-century street science of seduction. It began when men discovered that women love bad boys, men with Dark Triad traits. Game has become a front in the Gender Wars. This is an update and revision of a post from the archives.
Modern American women love bad boys!
A new era for women begins
“During this whole century the progress of artillery has been a duel between the maker of cannons and the maker of armor plates to keep the cannon balls out. You build a ship proof against the best gun known: somebody makes a better gun and sinks your ship. You build a heavier ship, proof against that gun: somebody makes a heavier gun and sinks you again. And so on. Well, the duel of sex is just like that.”
— A pick-up artist talking to a first wave feminist in George Bernard Shaw’s play “You Never Can Tell” (1895). See the follow-up conversation in the comments.
During the past century, science has forced breaks with the past certainties. For example, traditional State-to-State conventional war became suicidal with the development of nuclear weapons. But every force produces an opposite reaction. The reaction to nuclear weapons was a shift to new forms of conflict such as 4GW, cyberwar, economic war (for more about this see Unrestricted Warfare).
Similarly, technology created a break in history by allowing women to control their fertility. This made possible the serial social revolutions called feminism, still in motion with ends as yet unseen. Women were emancipated from their families and unleashed from many of society’s restraints. Women’s increased financial independence diminished their need to quickly “settle” – i.e., marry stable male providers (for more about this see these controversial articles in The Atlantic: Feb 2008, March 2008, April 2010). Today women delay that until their late 20s or early 30s.
Now liberated, women can follow their true natures. One expression of this is Girls’ Game: romance the man, stage the party-of-her-life, marry, have kids, divorce when they are in school — then get community property, child support, and independence. The husband provides support during those first few difficult years of raising children. Then divorce gives a woman the children she wants without the bother of having a husband. It is the logical strategy for women raised to value their independence above all else.
These changes are more fundamental to society than anything produced by splitting the atom.
Dark truths from Science
The results of women’s liberation were foreseen neither by scientists nor social reformers. First, women’s hypergamy was released. That is their drive to seek men of high status (e.g., the combination of wealth, income, status, height, appearance, and charisma). These are called “alpha” men, men of high social rank. It is a term loosely derived from ethology. The benefits of hypergamy to women are obvious.
Second, society lifted the restraints on women expressing their love of men with the Dark Triad of behavioral traits. Psychology Today describes them. Their appeal is not obvious to most men.
“Defined as a set of traits that include the tendency (to seek admiration and special treatment (narcissism), to be callous and insensitive (psychopathy)), and to manipulate others (Machiavellianism), the Dark Triad is rapidly becoming a new focus of personality psychology. …
“The technical definition of the Dark Triad, as stated in Jonason and Webster’s article, is rather daunting: “the Dark Triad as a whole can be thought of as a short-term, agentic, exploitative social strategy…” This means, in simpler terms, that people who show these qualities are trying to get away with acting out against others in order to achieve their own ends. Each of the individual qualities alone can make life difficult for those who know people like this. Combined, the Dark Triad traits in another person close to you can be detrimental to your mental health.”
Men can take this test to see their level of Dark Triad traits.
About “Game” – the counter-revolution begins
The reaction to feminism has begun – in the shadows, as do all revolutions and counter-revolutions.
As women’s liberation accelerated after WWII, the methods of pick-up artists” (aka “seducers”) evolved as well. Decades of slow experimentation on the streets brought Guy’s Game (aka Game) to maturity in the mid-1990s. It is a crude form of applied psychology developed by men through trial and error. Like alchemy, it is a mixture of fact and superstition used by people working without theory. It began, like most revolutionary actions, with an observation and an insight. Men saw that many women prefer bad boys. Men realized that they could act as bad boys and so increase their odds of success with women. Even pretending, against their natures, works.
As with other innovations in interpersonal relations – new forms of dancing (e.g., the waltz), divorce, abortion, the pill, rock music, postal boxes on the street – moralists condemn Game as a step on the road to iniquity. Feminists have gained the high ground in control of society’s institutions, and watch with outrage as men act in defiance of the new social norms they seek to impose. They use their power to suppress the spread of this knowledge: publishers don’t publish, YouTube closes down channels, social media ban heretics. I doubt this will succeed.
Street science: evidence that Game works
Word of this slowly spread as undernews during the past few decades. While the major media usually ignore Game, hundreds of books, videos, and courses teach men – imperfectly, crudely, often amorally – how to apply these methods in their dealings with 21st-century American women.
Much of Game consists of learning to pass the tests that women use to identify alphas. Neither the women’s tests nor Game is pretty. Both are acts in a Darwinian conflict, like those seen in nature films of life on Africa’s savannah. These are not the threads from which romantic comedies are woven (but then rom-coms are dying off, as a genre too alien for modern boys and girls).
What about the rest of us? Successful men living by the social codes of the past are “betas” (e.g., white knights, nice family men, good boys). Men unable to deal with modern women are “omegas”, substituting porn, sports, and computer games for women. These are the brutally honest classifications of street life.
See these demonstrations providing evidence that Game works.
Like all skills – painting, marksmanship, selling – not everybody can learn to use Game. Most will not make the necessary effort to achieve mastery. Many who try will fail. But, as with most skills, incremental improvement comes with learning and practice. Often that is enough to make a difference.
The Dark Triad goes public
“The Heart wants what it wants – or else it does not care.”
— From a letter by Emily Dickenson to her sister, Mrs. Samuel Bowles, 1862.
Often a catalyst makes the public aware that society has changed. The film 9 1/2 Weeks
The 100 million copies sold of Fifty Shades of Grey
The future
Feminism and Game are the next steps in the evolution away from the nuclear family that began after WWII – and accelerated when Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Family Law Act of 1969 retroactively abolishing the core of the marriage contract.
No barrage of condemnation from authorities can stop the spread of insights that produce more success with women. The standard first response to news about a revolutionary change in society (e.g., atomic weapons, women’s liberation, AI) is deploying Zeno’s paradox: change is impossible in “X” (whatever “X” is). It is a comforting but daft response.
We have begun the second stage of society’s response to Game: recognition. Articles mocking and condemning Game appear in major publications, in films, and on TV (e.g., “Till Death do Us Part
Are these developments good or bad? Consult a priest or philosopher, for you will not find the answers here. The FM website only attempts to help its readers more clearly see and understand the world, and decide how to act.
Science demonstrates the truths of Game
As with alchemy, science follows the amateurs in new fields. First, men on the street discovered the effectiveness of dark triad behaviors. Then scientists did experiments and developed theories to explain this. Here is a sample of the vast body of research validating many of the precepts of Game.
- “Dating preferences of university women: An analysis of the nice guy stereotype“ in Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, issue 4 (1999).
- “Do “bad boys” really get the girls? Delinquency as a cause and consequence of dating behavior among adolescents“ in Justice Quarterly, issue 2 (2004).
- “Niceness and Dating Success: A Further Test of the Nice Guy Stereotype“ in Sex Roles, August 2006.
- “Courtship compliance: The effect of touch on women’s behavior“ in Social Influence, volume 2 (2007). Ungated copy.
- “From dating to mating and relating: Predictors of initial and long-term outcomes of speed-dating in a community sample“ in European Journal of Personality, January/February 2011.
- “Mate-selection and the Dark Triad: Facilitating a short-term mating strategy and creating a volatile environment“ in Personality and Individual Differences, October 2011.
- “Quantifying the strength and form of sexual selection on men’s traits“ in Evolution and Human Behavior, September 2013.
- “Can an Insult Make You Fall in Love? Does nagging (or negging) make someone seem more attractive?“ by Jeremy Nicholson (PhD, psychology) in Psychology Today, 31 August 2013 — Cites several studies.
- “Dominance and the traits associated with it predict men’s mating success, but attractiveness does not in Evolution and Human Behavior, September 2013.
- “Choosy But Not Chaste: Multiple Mating in Human Females“ by Brooke A. Scelza in Evolutionary Anthropology, September/October 2013.
- Superior reproductive success of criminal men in Evolution and Human Behavior, November 2014 — Criminals get more women; they have more kids.
For More Information
What happened to the pioneers of Game – “pickup artists”? They were pretty extreme and most burned out. Also, the Left moved against them – deploying their immense power. Publishers would not publish their books. Many retailers would not sell their books. Social media and YouTube closed them down. See The death of the PUA community” (PickUp Artists) by Charlie Powell at Return of Kings, 11 March 2018.
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about Game, about women and gender issues, especially these…
- The feminist revolutionaries have won. Insurgents have arisen to challenge the new order. As always, they’re outlaws.
- The coming crash as men and women go their own way.
- MeToo discovers that there is always a counterrevolution.
- Game is toxic to feminism
- Red Pill knowledge is poison to marriage.
- Women unleash their rage! Beta males revolt!
- Bad results of #MeToo appear, surprising only feminists. – Men adopt defensive tactics with women at work.
Start here to understand the Gender Wars
Rollo Tomassi is one of the explorers of our strange new world. See his website and Twitter feed, and the poem on his “About” page.
The Rational Male
“The Rational Male is a rational and pragmatic approach to intergender dynamics and the social and psychological underpinnings of intergender relations. The book is the compiled, ten-year core writing of author/blogger Rollo Tomassi from therationalmale.com. Rollo Tomassi is one of the leading voices in the globally growing, male-focused online consortium known as the “Manosphere”.
“It outlines the concepts of positive masculinity, the feminine imperative, plate theory, operative social conventions and the core psychological theory behind Game awareness and “red pill” ideology. Tomassi explains and outlines the principles of intergender social dynamics and foundational reasoning behind them.”
