A Brief History of the Seduction Community

I am sure all of you PUAs out there have heard of “The Game” by Neil Strauss. When the book was published it became a huge phenomenon all around the world that it gave an increasing amount of press-coverage to the whole of seduction community.  But the seduction community has been around there for many years before “The Game” was published, it was pretty much unheard of as it was operating as an ‘underground’ community.  

In the 1980’s, two California self-help gurus began selling their own advice for meeting attractive women. One of them was known as “R. Don Steele”, he focused on helping men over 35 meet younger women. The other, Ross Jeffries, promotes a collection of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques called “Speed Seduction”. In 1994, one of Ross Jefferies former student, Lewis De Payne, founded the newsgroup alt.seduction.fast (”ASF”). This was a place where seduction techniques were exchanged between pick-up artists.

The teachers within the seduction community believe that the conventional dating advice for men is fatally flawed. For example, the seduction gurus reject the notion that men should attempt to woo women by spending money on them (e.g. buying drinks, gifts, jewellery), calling it “supplication”. They also discourage flattery. They embed a belief in men 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. Members of the seduction community work on their seduction skills by improving their understanding of female psychology, their confidence and self-esteem, and also teach others their honed skills. The body of knowledge in the field of “pick-up” has grown 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.

Over time other seduction teachers emerged with competing methods, and became known within this community as “seduction gurus” or “gurus”. Two of the most notable of these new teachers were Mystery and David DeAngelo. They have their own brand of seduction technique; Mystery uses scientific break-down of human behaviour and attraction theory and canned routines to teach his style of seduction called the Mystery Method. David DeAngelo has his unique brand of seduction called “cocky funny” which integrates making a women laugh as part of the seduction. Other notable “seduction gurus” go by names such as, Gunwitch, Juggler, Zan Perrion, Tyler Durden, Carlos Xuma, Stephen Nash and Style.

The seduction community has been receiving increased media attention, response to the seduction community has been varied; a review of The Game in the San Francisco Chronicle characterized the community as “a puerile cult of sexual conquest,” and calls its tactics “sinister” and “pathetic.”

The media attention and rapid growth of the seduction community has led to commercialization and competition. Teachers of seduction tactics now sell workshops, books, e-books, DVDs, and CDs over the internet and it has now turned into a multi-million dollar industry.

Saud