Aggressive and misogynist sales talk revealed in dating game

“The language used by PUAs is inherently verbally aggressive and manipulative towards women. Despite their claim to possess some special, almost magical verbal skills, pickup artists are a lot more successful in selling their services to other men than in seducing women,” says Daria Dayter, Assistant Professor of  English language and linguistics (tenure track) at Tampere University.

Pickup artists are men who claim to have a technique for finding, attracting, and seducing sexual partners. Moreover, PUA leaders often identify themselves as dating coaches.

“They call themselves a speed seduction community and are occupied with inventing and teaching language-based ways to seduce women and quickly get them into bed for short-term sexual relationships. The point is that women don't realise that they are being seduced as part of a game,” Daria Dayter tells.

In PUA language the process of seduction is called game and the woman to be seduced is target. The goal of this movement is to improve men’s pickup skills with women. PUAs have developed a certain culture and community around them, with their own online forums, coaching courses, leading figures, private clubs, and code words. It is quite clear that all this has nothing to do with love.

According to Dayter, pickup artists seem like a relatively harmless slice of a much larger and more damaging phenomenon, known as ‘manosphere’. While not all PUA members have misogynistic views, they are at risk of being drafted into more extreme manosphere communities.

“PUAs aggressively market their teachings as something that would make shy men more confident and outgoing. In our linguistic analysis we show that the PUA doctrine is fundamentally based on persuading their clients that women are not equal and sentient partners in sexual relationships,” Dayter remarks.

Language analysis revealed an attempt to sound scientific with fake terms

Daria Dayter and her colleague Sofia Rüdiger from the University of Bayreuth in Germany have since 2014 examined discourses by pickup artists. The two have recently published a book “The Language of Pickup Artists” in which they examine how PUAs communicate with each other, with potential clients, and with the women they want to seduce.

Dayter and Rüdiger conducted an empirical linguistic analysis of a large collection of PUA language. Their material included video-recorded flirting conversations with women, social media chats, teaching videos and lectures, and stories about seduction posted online.

“Looking at very large collections of text as well as at specific snippets of conversation, we made conclusions about the true aims of this community and the negative impact its spread may have on society,” Dayter concludes.

PUAs use fake terminology to make their teachings sound scientifically qualified. By analysing this terminology, the researchers were able to show that the more problematic the situation is the more the PUAs use these terms.

Increased knowledge builds up women's safety

Daria Dayter considers educating the public about the activities of the pick-up artists as the key to increased safety of women and girls. Increased awareness may also prevent men from radicalizing towards a deeper manosphere.

“Based on our findings, we plan to create downloadable teaching materials on online safety that can be used in schools and organisations to teach recognising manipulative verbal behaviour and extricating yourself from such oppressive situations,” Dayter adds.

However, there are also those men who have good intentions but who feel they need professional help with dating practices. Perhaps identifying the risks of pickup artists’ teachings will help them seek advice from those with a more egalitarian and human approach.

Further information

Daria Dayter
daria.dayter [at] tuni.fi

Text: Anna Aatinen