What we can learn from pick up artists

I don't, as I've said before, think pick up artists are completely crazy. I think that at the centre of the whole PUA culture is one absolutely correct claim and it's worth knowing. And it's a truth that we officially spend a lot of time trying to deny. You might say that it is like the emperor's new clothes.

What they have noticed is that over and over again the supposed experts on human relationships mislead us. It jumped out at me a while ago when I found myself with an extended period to get through with no one to talk to for large sections of the day, no computer and no television. What I did have was a stack of magazines about two feet high. These included magazines for girls and women ranging from CosmoGirl to RedBook and men's magazines ranging from Men's Health to Esquire. And I noticed something interesting about the sex advice columns. Something so interesting that I got out a notebook and pencil and read them all one after another taking notes this time.

Here is the thing I noticed.

• Any time a woman wrote to say she was unhappy with her sex life she was was told, "You have to make sure he understands your needs.
• Any time a man wrote to say he was unhappy with his sex life he was was told, "You have to understand her needs."

On this model, it is the woman's needs that should drive couples' sex lives. That men might have needs isn't even acknowledged. At most we have wants and these wants are relatively unimportant things that can and should be changed as required. If your partner doesn't like what you want, then your want needs to be sacrificed to her needs.

What the  pick up artists have noticed is that in real life it works exactly the other way around. Men have wants and it is these wants (and not anyone's needs) that drive just about everything about human sexuality.

Now you may not want it to be that way. You may feel very strongly that it would be better and fairer if it were otherwise. But it isn't otherwise. And all you have to do to see this is look around. An anthropologist from Mars would figure it out in about two seconds.

Look at the way women dress. The only way we could describe this as satisfying their needs is if we said that women dress the way they do in order to satisfy the feeling of power they get when they successfully provoke a response in boys. That clearly is something that women pursue for whatever reasons but that pursuit is driven by men's wants.

And everything about human sexuality works this way.

Now you may, as I say, wish it were otherwise. You are in good company if you do. An awful lot of the smartest people in our society wish it were otherwise and will often pretend that it is right down to writing sex advice columns as if it were otherwise. But if you really want to meet women, you are much better off presenting yourself as a strong man with strong wants than you are presenting yourself as a sensitive guy who is willing to subjugate his wants in order to respond to a woman's needs.