Pickup Artistry and the Lost Art

Pocket-sized baby animals are the
only wingman you need!

For the uninitiated, there's a device called a kickstarter. Kickstarter is a website dedicated (like a few other services) to helping small and independent developers get their product or service to market. It's essentially a way to gather micro-investments for starting capital without giving up any corporate control and I am all for that. Usually, I'm all for the projects it generates - I've been tempted to use the program to get a potential novel to market if I ever make it so far as to finish any of them.

Sometimes though, it stumbles into the realm of stupidity. An internet pickup artist is publishing a book that is a good snapshot of why I will be adding large swaths of reddit to the parental controls on the off chance I ever have children who age up enough to use the internet, and a good part of the reason why I totally understand the overprotective nature of every father figure in every literary venue ever - at least where daughters are concerned.

As it boils down, this guy's style is sexual assault by degrees - basically pushing the envelope until the target's reptile brain overrides higher brain function and they assent without consenting. It preys on the fact that not all women are over-defensive psychos (and that, frankly, there are quite a few women running around with loose morals) in order to get you laid. The whole idea smacks of entitlement to sex, as if it's somehow a right of yours to pursue, to the fuzzy borders of rape, any woman you choose, and until she maces you or has someone kick the crap out of you, you're not to take no for an answer. Basically, it's the feminist position in reverse - it's not a no unless it's emphatically stated, and if there's even a little wiggle-room left in the tone, that's consent, baby!

It smacks of wearing your jeans so low that your boxers show (back in my day, that was the fast track to the ridicule of your peers... and probably still is.), substituting "Body Spray" for actual cologne, and alchohol whose quality is measured according to the formula "Proof over Price". While I agree that there seems to be some value in being forward, and I'm certainly not an expert on the subject by any stretch of the imagination, I consider not being an expert in this field to be something of a matter of pride.

I don't need to be a pickup master because I did it right the first time.

The bonus items are actually worse - in order to pad out his goals and make even more free money, the author has now been committed to promises of chapters on, among other things, Juggling Multiple Relationships. Now, I'm all for open relationships, when and if all partners are consenting to the idea. Something tells me, just from the general attitude of the rest of the book, that's not what this chapter is about.

If you have time, hop on over and report this kickstarter - the report button is at the bottom of the page.