Excuse me. Do you need a pick-up?

My friend Martian, an astute thinker in these matters, posed some excellent questions about my recent advocacy of the PUA movement. Herewith my position on the matter.

As an introduction for the unfamiliar, courtesy Wikipedia: 

A pickup artist is a man perceived to be skilled in the art of finding, attracting, and seducing women by the seduction community. Such a man purportedly abides by a certain system deemed effective by that community in his attempts to seduce women.

The PUA phenomenon came to public view when Neil Strauss wrote and published his book "The Game" in 2005. The book is an embedded journalist's experience of starting as a newbie PUA, taking courses, being mentored and applying what he learned. Along the way we learn about some of the more famous characters who teach aspiring PUAs, and the somewhat seedy business of the same guys making money by doing so.

I say seedy because my biggest argument against the PUA movement is its chaotic commercial classlessness. Every website, every portal, every interaction appears to this man's eye as an attempt to sign me up for a class or otherwise take my money. Not only is it distasteful, but it smells like carnival barking.

And it shouldn't. Men seeking an advantage over other men in the quest for women is an ancient motivator. It's biological, too, if the animal world is any guide. Males of all mammalian and bird and I guess reptilian species attempt to out-do one another when trying to attract a mate. It's the National Geographic version of what in business we call competitive advantage. In fact, I'm made quizzical by the fact that humans are one of few species where males are notably less colourful/attractive than females. One wonders what behavioural, genetic or biological quirk caused that.

The distillation of PUA thinking is that ordinary males can attract women they thought previously unattainable. Small behavioural modifications and a big helping of self-confidence go a long way towards that goal. That's it. Yes, there's ego-driven showmanship involved; yes, it's clear some guys become obsessed (for a while at least); and no, it's not for everyone.

However, my support stems from the general idea that any kind of public discussion regarding how male/female interactions work is good. I'd hardly be able to think otherwise, given the six years and over 1,000 posts here. Not every idea out there is good, but sometimes we find horseshoes in horseshit. The way I view PUA adherents is that they have the same mindset distribution as the religious; a few are fervent and annoying devotees, and the rest pick and choose what works individually.

Despite those extremists, there are some genuinely good notions here. I hinted at self-confidence, which will help some guys. Ditto a little peacocking. Choosing a new way with opening lines can't hurt. And why not try a little hard-to-get play? You get the drift. If you're stuck in a rut unable to even start a conversation with women, surely changing your attitude is worth a shot. Having said that, I have no doubt that most PUA types pretty quickly return to being themselves, because the act is too hard to sustain. It's why I do not fear a nation of ego-centric trim-chasers - human nature is so biased against it over the longer term. (Most) guys really do want to settle down with one woman.

The PUA world will stand or fall on one simple idea: that if no woman ever reacts positively to a pick-up artist, then the argument for their methods evaporates. It's a supply and demand case. Each woman they approach will determine the outcome, which is exactly as it should be. If a woman chooses to shag a misogynistic and paternal butt-hole, that's entirely her business.

As long as these guys remain within the boundaries of both the law and morality, it remains rightly a private matter between consenting adults. Other elements in society might not like it, but that's too bad. No laws exist against foolishness or flawed thinking as far as I'm aware...yet.




Bottoms Up, Lady-Lifters.

It's Just a Little Crush

It's just some little thing.

There's no power behind it, so I leave it alone, sitting somewhere in my head, ready to look at whenever I'm in a dreamy mood.

A crush is like an unfertilized egg. It's beautiful and self-contained, symmetrical and not, forever and not. An egg never turns into anything until you crack the shell, and even then it can become something tasty. Like brunch.

Or it ends up on  floor, broken, a big gooey mess.

To make the egg safe to eat, it needs to change, however subtly. You must add heat, or mix it with milk and brandy. An egg by itself is just...itself.

Like a crush.



Bottoms Up, Secret Lovers.

State of the Union

After a couple of months' reflection, a few thoughts:


+ men want women

+ women want men


Some motivations last longer than a tv season. Additionally, it is mostly the case that:


+ men want to (eventually) find the one woman with whom to live HEA

+ women want to (eventually) find the one man with whom to live HEA


No revelation there, either, although I think we underestimate men's desire for this, especially as marriage appears to provide more physical and mental health benefits for them.

Notwithstanding part II, above:


+ men often pursue women diabolically unsuitable to the job of living HEA

+ women often pursue men chronically unable to live with them HEA


Which is fine, because previous generations are horrible at passing on their experience, and so we need to learn the same lessons about failing at relationships. Each generation relearns afresh. However:


+ men often settle rather than quit

+ women often settle rather than quit


I think the reason we sabotage ourselves in the search for the right person is that it's fun chasing and being chased - we get off on pursing and being pursued. In short, the game itself becomes the objective.

There comes a point in every relationship - except with the one - when we need to call it off. It might be after the first date or it might be after a year, but bailing will be the best course for both of you.

That's the trick IMO. Knowing when to jump, and knowing when to stick.



Bottoms Up, Gamers.

Chaos and Cupcakes

Madalina Ghenea

I need help completing the following:

The way to a woman's heart is.....

I raise this in the context of that old simplistic generalization:

The way to a man's heart is via his stomach. 

Let me be clear that I'm not about to defend - even in jest - this kind of  aphorism. To do so thesedays requires sixty-five pages of exceptions, eight declarations about domestic stereotypes and a dozen portion size disclaimers. What I will say is that any woman who presents me with a hot plate of beautifully roasted chicken, fresh green vegetables and a small serving of garlic mashed potato might find herself the object of my (relationship-appropriate) affection.

Just sayin'.


Here's one possible answer to my question.


Bottoms Up, Food Networkers.

Friday Fluffer - Wedding Night Sex

The prepared man thinks ahead. On the night of his (hopefully one and only) wedding, he wants to be the best he can, so he searches the internet using the following terms:

wedding night sex

Horrified, he discovers that 52% of couples fail to fuck on their wedding night.

He vows he won't be a part of that majority.

Ten Wedding Night Sex Rules. [link]<-----click br="br" for="for" link="link" sfw.="sfw.">
A few more ideas spring to mind, but I'll keep them for my own night of nuptial bliss. Whenever that might be.


Bottoms Up, Brides!

BTW, here's how to find your wedding limousine.



Beautiful bride photo from here [link]

Friday Fluffer - New Use for Nylons

As if the idea of stockings isn't sexy enough, there's this:

Tie two or three knots in a nylon stocking, and gently wrap it (don’t tie it) around the base of his penis so it’s snug but still has some give. The compression makes him even more sensitive, and the knots stimulate your clitoris as you move in girl-on-top.

Anyone tried it?

From the wonderful folks at Cosmopolitan.


Bottoms Up, Adventurers!


Pic from here [link]

Allow Yourself Pleasure

"Most women need permission to express themselves sexually and allow themselves pleasure."*

I sense an element of truth in this statement, and yet raise my eyebrows. 'Permission' implies someone has the authority allowing each individual female release. Is is possible that women themselves deny that permission? Do women stop their own natural behaviour? Why?

This kind of self flagellation is foreign to guys. We routinely deny ourselves expression from the other end of that spectrum - controlling our impulses civilizes us. This, too, can be overdone, leading to male sexual introversion.

Perhaps we could meet in the middle. Ladies, give yourself permission. Men, go meet the women.




Bottoms Up, Permit Holders!



Pic from here [link]

*Quote from a quote from "Release the Seductress Within" by Laurie Sue Brockway.

I Can Read Your Mind, Darling.

No I can't, sweetheart, so it would be easier overall if you just told me what you were thinking.

We have such difficulty doing this though, don't we? And when we think we know what we want, something in our head flips and there's another set of stuff we want. Dammit, this affects me at least as badly as everyone else, so I doubt it's a sex-based thing. My suspicion is that desire-drift grows from mental rootlessness - in other words, lack of a spiritual anchor.

There are two problems here:

1. Not knowing what we want.

2. Inability to communicate today's (or any) specific want.

The latter is a limitation of language. At the best granularity, I doubt we ever move beyond 80% efficiency when trying to get our thinking across to another. If the former - the actual meat of what we're looking for from the other person - changes direction like a school of fish, we transmit almost nothing.

Consistency is the answer. I should decide upon what I want, and tell the people who need to know what those things are. After a while, the message will get through.

Or I could find a woman who can read my mind




Bottoms Up, Communicators!

Pic from here.[link]

Ejaculate: You'll Make Her Happy

Reading Snaf's and KayDee's blogs recently has been a little like being backstage watching the audience reaction to a new Broadway production. The show - a musical, methinks, called Let the Spunk Fly - is a physical show, full of nudity and grunts that has a climax with a twist: there is no climax.

All of us backstage are men, in on the plot twist. And those in the audience are all women, who have no idea what's about to happen.

The real trick of the show is that the women leave thinking that something's happened, when in fact nothing has.

Okay, okay, enough of the smart-arse metaphors.

It looks like lots of chicks are surprised that they're not the only ones providing artificial orgasms. My reaction is everyman's - Huh? You mean I fooled you the way you fooled me?

Frankly, I really don't care that much. Sometimes I won't want to express my reproductive fluids, but it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. There's always next time. And we got to spend naked or semi-naked fun time together, right?

My question of women is: What else don't you know about your men?


Bottoms Up, Fuckers!

Feeling Good, Louis.

In reverse order, these activities make me feel physically good.

6. Waking after a regenerative night's sleep.

5. Completion of a cardio and/or strength work-out.

4. A swim, or any kind of in-water activity.

3. Peak cocktail buzz at 1.2 martinis.

2. Class A Elimination ie: a great shit.

1. Orgasm, preferably with female accompaniment.


Other stuff can feel good, but tend to the more adrenaline-based end of the spectrum. Reaching the peak of a mountain or driving fast both fall into that category. YMMV, of course.

No surprise that reproduction makes us feel good. Nature's clever like that.

I had a point about this, but forgot what it was. If I think of it, I'll get back to you. What I am thinking is that I should have ranked the feeling of when one surreptitiously slides one's hand up a lady's skirt, to find that she's already sweetly slippery. That might be up there somewhere.

Nah, that's more of an anticipation thing, not in the same ballpark at all.

Bottoms up!





Pic of Milka Duno from here. [link]

Feminist Literature

Floating around the internet searching for dungeon equipment proved immensely time wasting. Not only are there VERY few vendors, the quality of the goods looks decidedly dodgy. And surprisingly there's not much of a market for second-hand (pre-spanked?) BDSM kit...although maybe not so surprisingly.

Hey, I'll give you fifty for the rack, the standing cage and the two wooden stingers.

What I did find was an enormous amount of porn, which, as we all know, was the reason hand lotion was invented.

One kink I don't understand is this thing of writing shit on a woman. I'm looking at an example now. She's wearing spike heels and a sweet spiked collar. Her master (presumably) used a felt pen to write what amount to instructions all over her. Big arrows point at her cooter saying "For Fucking". On her buttocks, similar arrows lead to her chocolate starfish with the words "Cocks Go Here." On her boobs is the instruction "Cum All Over These" and at various places she's branded a "Slut".

Ooookay.




Exploring Uma photo from here [link]

Ripping Yarns

They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but I say the way to a woman's pussy is through her underpants. Through or around or (in the case of crotchless) between. Hells, it's giving me a woody thinking about the wonders of ladies and their underduds.

James Bond (of course) is the man best at undressing ladies, mostly because they don't have much on to start with. (Miss Moneypenny is the exception.) Funny that being a licenced-to-kill spy also entitles one to a cotery of easily-bedded hotties in evening gowns or bikinis.

Anyway, it was Sean Connery who I noted once de-frocked a lover by slicing through the spaghetti straps of her LBD, letting the thing fall to the floor.

:cut to shots of rampant elephant trunks and earthquakes:

Where was I? Right, the road to heaven lies beyond the boy-shorts.

There is an art in removing a lady's panties. Possible choices include demurely running them down the legs, if she's standing. If she's on her back, shimmy those things over her arse, create a tangle at the feet, then let her kick them off. And then there's ripping the damn things off so you can get to the action ASAP.

Nothing says God I want you NOW! like using brute strength to tear that shit off, and hopping into it with animal abandon.

:cue shots of elephant trunks rampant and earthquakes:

Yesterday I discovered how women feel about the wanton destruction of their sexy smalls at the hands of a neanderthal lover:

They Love It.

And the attraction? The sound of ripping lace.

I think they call this 'Win-Win'.





Thanks to Snaf for the lingerie-wearer's perspective. [link]

Loverly ladies photo from here [link]

Edited for incorrect panty-removal technique. Someone would have picked up the error.

Secret World of Women

DocAnnie alerted us to Dr Marta Meana's appearance on Oprah talking about her research. [link] Dr Meana's studies of women and desire led The Oprah to her and resulting fame. I have pulled a few quotes from the article. They need no help from me.

~

Being desired is the real orgasm...

~

...while moments of pleasure are great, it's the anticipation and buildup to those moments that really excite women.

~

...being desired means that a man doesn't just want to have sex. He wants to have sex with you.

~

One of the most common fantasies when it comes to women and sex is to be dominated by a desirable man...They throw caution to the wind, and they're going to take a chance that you're going to be okay with it...

~

Passion is dependent on novelty, discovery, desire...

~

One of the most complicated aspects of female desire, Dr. Meana says, is that women often want different things at different times...

~

There is an additional article here about the science of attraction. It confirms much of what many of us have come to understand, that smell is way more important than we have thought to date. [link]

Pole Dancing

Somewhere between Cirque du Soleil and Mons Venus Gentleman's Club lies the new heat in pole dancing. It's gone suburban, apparently, this ancient art-form, even mainstream. In that wonderfully American way in which anything, no matter how salacious, can be formalized, there is even a Pole Dancing Federation.[link] Their next convention is to be held in Redwood National Park, I understand. Them's some might fine poles there, hot-diggety.

Stripping and poles go hand-in-hand. As a youth on my first visit to a strip club, it was clear that the girls on stage felt more comfortable with a prop, especially the greenhorns. Putting myself in their position, it's natural to be nervous, what with all your bodily wonders and flaws visible to the leering mass of drunk sweaty wallets....I mean customers. Holding onto a pole must feel like holding onto your dignity, at least until Miguel comes backstage during your break and offers you a little something to get you through.

*sniff*

Okay, it's unavoidable, I know. I can't be cute about this: yes, there is a connection between the "pole" and a man's penis, otherwise known as a "pole". There, it's out in the open now.

What's that? Women don't see it that way? Oh.

Well we do. How else to interpret a disrobing female cavorting around a stiff cylindrical verticularity? Can there be another explanation?

In the end, I guess women pole-dancing with their sig.oth. as an audience is the natural result of men unable or unwilling to learn a few dance steps viz: Tango. Women want to dance, they want to do it with their guy, so why not invite an inanimate brass third to help things along - to grease the pole, if you'll pardon the pun. Good luck to them.

And if ever Vegas needs a new attraction it would be this. The strippermobile, complete with pole. A new high in family entertainment. [link]

Take One Step Back

Guessing here, but I imagine that most guys rush foreplay. Being goal oriented does have drawbacks. Great in mergers and acquisitions. Leads to dissatisfaction in sex.

This is a case where the animal in us (rrrrrrawwrrrr) needs to be trained. If we behaved like bonobos, we'd be copulating pretty much all the time. Delaying copulating is the operative thought here - it's all about tantalizing the females before the males get their junk in where it counts.

Concentrating less on one's junk in the short term makes for a happy man in the long term. I think the answer to this is to really, really slow down the foreplay, or better still, find a way to fall in step with your lady's pace.

In a perfect sexual world, this would be every guy's aim. Experiment with the woman, and encourage her feedback. Every babe is different, so if you have a harem, school's in much of the time. The upside is that once you have the outline of a woman's sexual mind, life becomes very, very happy.

But you need to reach that point first, and male drive being what it is, speed looks to be the right thing; it is not. I would try slowing everything down by taking one step back for every step you make towards actual penetration. By that I mean if you're about to start caressing her breasts, try to hint at it first. If you're removing her panties, don't. Go do something else. Delay to the point that she's squirming with anticipation.

Suggestion, hinting, inference, teasing are the bedrocks of guiding her to want you with the same aggression that you want her.

In fact, the art of turning on a woman lies in creating anticipation. They love it, and it pays to remember that anticipation lives in the mind, not in the pussy.

Now, there will always be the times (or indeed the women) who aren't wired to find deliciousness in anticipation. In that case, they'll tell you. Learning to listen to what she's telling you is part of being at school. But I don't mean necessarily what she's verbalizing.

What she's telling you in every other way is more important.

Foreplay Part 1.

Foreplay Part 2.

Foreplay Part 4.