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livAuthor: Clarisse Thorn
Details: (c) 2012 Clarisse Thorn; Self-published by the author
Verdict: Confessions of a Pickup Artist chaser introduces some interesting ideas and observations.
Reasons for reading it: I enjoy Thorn's blog, partly because I find her analytical but not academic approach to sex-positive feminism almost unique.
How it came into my hands: I decided I was willing to take the risk of buying a full-priced ebook that hasn't been professionally published, knowing I was getting a lightly edited compendium of blog posts, because I do want to support Thorn's endeavours. The book was initially sold for next to nothing on Amazon, but I decided I'd wait, and pay the full cover price at Smashwords, in order to get a DRM-free version in a convenient format. So I avoided supporting Amazon and also avoided the hassle of having to pretend to be American and then crack the DRM in order to format shift to something that would work on my reader. So it's true, I am willing to pay more for actually usable file formats!
Confessions of a Pickup Artist chaser is no more than what it looks like. There's some interesting ideas, but mostly it's a bunch of anecdotes and blog-style braindump. I'm honestly not sure why Thorn bothered organizing it into chapters, because each chapter seems to deal with three or four nearly unrelated topics. That's not to say CoaPAC is rambly and disorganized; Thorn is clearly building a case here, and has put some thought into selecting which blog posts to polish and include and there is a definite framework linking them together. Interestingly the book includes hyperlinks to material on other blogs and forums; obviously it's intended to be read on an internet-enabled device rather than a dedicated ereader.
I think one of the things that makes Thorn particularly interesting as a feminist is that she really has a lot of compassion, perhaps even love, for the kind of whiny, socially inept men who think it's deeply unfair of feminists to care more about women's right to political, economic and sexual equality than about men's loneliness. She's not at all willing to compromise her feminist principles for this demographic, but she also doesn't dismiss the problem of loneliness as a non-problem, a distraction or entitled, anti-feminist backlash. That obviously puts her in a really good position to investigate and talk about the Pickup Artist community, which is full of lonely, socially inept men, many of whom resent the feminist movement for not being interested in their problems. Though at the same time, she does subtitle the book
Thorn doesn't come to any very startling conclusions about the Pickup Artist phenomenon: many Pickup Artists are unhappy and lonely social outcasts who genuinely need help interacting with women, but a minority are vicious misogynists. And both categories are ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous "gurus" who are very willing to take their money and promise them what they want, whether that's finding love or revenge on the evil bitches for having vaginas they're not sufficiently willing to share. She's at the most interesting when she observes the homosociality of the community, the way it provides a socially acceptable outlet for men to give eachother emotional support and relationship advice on the one hand, while at the same time attracting women is for many less an aim in itself than a way to gain social standing with male friends.
The other aspect of the book that I enjoyed was Thorn's attempts to make generalizations about sexuality and courtship beyond the specific Pickup subculture, and particularly comparing Pickup to highly cerebral, geeky sexual subcultures like polyamory and the (straight) BDSM community. Of course she has no rigorous basis for her theories, but they're still interesting theories! Her ideas about what she calls "strategic ambiguity" I found particularly interesting. She's actually trying to tackle the problem that direct, explicit verbal discussion of everything to do with relationships and sex isn't especially romantic or sexy for many (perhaps even most) people, and how to address that in the context of an ethical approach to consent. A lot of feminists pretty much just stop at the view that if being direct and honest isn't sexy, well, too bad, it's obviously far more important to avoid any possibility of violating someone than to obtain sexual thrills. Of course that's entirely a morally valid position, but Thorn is trying to develop a model for how to enjoy things like flirting, the thrill of the chase, uncertainty about how much someone returns your feelings, playing power games, using body language and hints as well as direct discussions and so on, while still behaving ethically. Somewhat analogous to how some kinksters may play with violence, pain, domination, simulated non-consent etc, within an ethical framework, but encompassing people who are, for want of a better word, mainstream, not necessarily vanilla in their sexual tastes precisely, but not interested in or intellectual enough to enjoy the extremely verbal, cerebral culture of BDSM-style "informed consent". I don't think she's entirely right, but I do think she's trying to find ways to think and talk about stuff that otherwise isn't getting discussed, and that's a very good start.
Details: (c) 2012 Clarisse Thorn; Self-published by the author
Verdict: Confessions of a Pickup Artist chaser introduces some interesting ideas and observations.
Reasons for reading it: I enjoy Thorn's blog, partly because I find her analytical but not academic approach to sex-positive feminism almost unique.
How it came into my hands: I decided I was willing to take the risk of buying a full-priced ebook that hasn't been professionally published, knowing I was getting a lightly edited compendium of blog posts, because I do want to support Thorn's endeavours. The book was initially sold for next to nothing on Amazon, but I decided I'd wait, and pay the full cover price at Smashwords, in order to get a DRM-free version in a convenient format. So I avoided supporting Amazon and also avoided the hassle of having to pretend to be American and then crack the DRM in order to format shift to something that would work on my reader. So it's true, I am willing to pay more for actually usable file formats!
Confessions of a Pickup Artist chaser is no more than what it looks like. There's some interesting ideas, but mostly it's a bunch of anecdotes and blog-style braindump. I'm honestly not sure why Thorn bothered organizing it into chapters, because each chapter seems to deal with three or four nearly unrelated topics. That's not to say CoaPAC is rambly and disorganized; Thorn is clearly building a case here, and has put some thought into selecting which blog posts to polish and include and there is a definite framework linking them together. Interestingly the book includes hyperlinks to material on other blogs and forums; obviously it's intended to be read on an internet-enabled device rather than a dedicated ereader.
I think one of the things that makes Thorn particularly interesting as a feminist is that she really has a lot of compassion, perhaps even love, for the kind of whiny, socially inept men who think it's deeply unfair of feminists to care more about women's right to political, economic and sexual equality than about men's loneliness. She's not at all willing to compromise her feminist principles for this demographic, but she also doesn't dismiss the problem of loneliness as a non-problem, a distraction or entitled, anti-feminist backlash. That obviously puts her in a really good position to investigate and talk about the Pickup Artist community, which is full of lonely, socially inept men, many of whom resent the feminist movement for not being interested in their problems. Though at the same time, she does subtitle the book
Long interviews with hideous menand that ambivalence definitely comes through!
Thorn doesn't come to any very startling conclusions about the Pickup Artist phenomenon: many Pickup Artists are unhappy and lonely social outcasts who genuinely need help interacting with women, but a minority are vicious misogynists. And both categories are ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous "gurus" who are very willing to take their money and promise them what they want, whether that's finding love or revenge on the evil bitches for having vaginas they're not sufficiently willing to share. She's at the most interesting when she observes the homosociality of the community, the way it provides a socially acceptable outlet for men to give eachother emotional support and relationship advice on the one hand, while at the same time attracting women is for many less an aim in itself than a way to gain social standing with male friends.
The other aspect of the book that I enjoyed was Thorn's attempts to make generalizations about sexuality and courtship beyond the specific Pickup subculture, and particularly comparing Pickup to highly cerebral, geeky sexual subcultures like polyamory and the (straight) BDSM community. Of course she has no rigorous basis for her theories, but they're still interesting theories! Her ideas about what she calls "strategic ambiguity" I found particularly interesting. She's actually trying to tackle the problem that direct, explicit verbal discussion of everything to do with relationships and sex isn't especially romantic or sexy for many (perhaps even most) people, and how to address that in the context of an ethical approach to consent. A lot of feminists pretty much just stop at the view that if being direct and honest isn't sexy, well, too bad, it's obviously far more important to avoid any possibility of violating someone than to obtain sexual thrills. Of course that's entirely a morally valid position, but Thorn is trying to develop a model for how to enjoy things like flirting, the thrill of the chase, uncertainty about how much someone returns your feelings, playing power games, using body language and hints as well as direct discussions and so on, while still behaving ethically. Somewhat analogous to how some kinksters may play with violence, pain, domination, simulated non-consent etc, within an ethical framework, but encompassing people who are, for want of a better word, mainstream, not necessarily vanilla in their sexual tastes precisely, but not interested in or intellectual enough to enjoy the extremely verbal, cerebral culture of BDSM-style "informed consent". I don't think she's entirely right, but I do think she's trying to find ways to think and talk about stuff that otherwise isn't getting discussed, and that's a very good start.
