In Defense of Pick-up Artistry

To say that The Game has aged badly would be to understate how outrageous it was even in its own time: 20 years ago, just as women had finally become empowered to pursue sex on its own merits, and on their own terms, the pick-up artist Neil Strauss published his guide to remaking an entire generation of men in the illustrious image of Casanova. He, and men like him, seemed to have figured out how to subvert women’s hard-won agency through a mix of reverse psychology and weaponised charm, which infuriated feminist critics. That the pick-up artist movement’s most celebrated star was Erik “Mystery” von Markovik, a man with goth eyeliner and a penchant for terrible faux-fur hats, only further cemented the consensus that women who went to bed with these guys were doing so, if not against their will, then certainly against their better judgment.