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The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Neil Strauss is a rock star. Figuratively speaking, anyway.

Not just the members of the so-called "seduction community" hold this opinion – having written for people like the members of the band Motley Crue or shock-rock wannabe Marilyn Manson, and rubbing elbows with editors at Rolling Stone and the New York Times elevates your status.

But his book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists . . . (now a classic in the pickup artist world) points to a different type of man altogether.

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists sets itself out to be a coming-of-age story of a young horny guy known only as Style, as he is mentored and stretched into a confident and capable pickup artist by the older and wiser Mystery. As such, it should be a kind of heterosexual manifesto, a sexual page-turner – the reader browsing titles at the local bookstore would expect this book to contain secrets or at least a handful of really filthy sex stories.

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists I was fully expecting the male version of The Second Sex, or something just a bit revolutionary and revealing. I had every intention of ripping right through the book, loving it, handing it out to friends, maybe becoming a disciple myself. It isn't that I'm clunky or unfamiliar with women – here my girlfriend rolls her eyes – but really I've been looking for something to bind men together the way women can be bound together – that comfortable familiar look that I've never felt I could share with a man.

It turns out that The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists is nothing more than the memoir of a well-educated New York Times writer who decides to enter the internet world of the seduction community. He soon becomes a student, then an advocate, and finally what many would consider the poster-child for pickup artists. We see Strauss, as Style, attend seminars and meet his heroes in sit down meetings, on a one to one basis. I found it difficult to stop reminding myself who this guy is – seriously, Strauss is regarded by some as the greatest pickup artist alive. Certainly, this is not your average tale and its novelty makes it difficult to put down.

The men of the seduction community should not be confused with "manly men" – most of them are metrosexuals with a fancier wardrobe than the women they target. On his recent VH1 flop, Mystery (the mentor of the book's author Neil Strauss) could often be seen in pastel-colored velvet cowboy hats, extraneous piercings and flashy jewelry – even makeup, as the woman I was with commented: "He looks like he's wearing mascara". Strauss himself is an metrosexual, but that may not be where his "feminine side" ends. There are many observations in The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists that could leave a reader wondering as to the true nature of Strauss' sexuality. For instance, when talking about telling sex stories to close male friends, Strauss offers this tidbit:

"It is taboo among men to picture their best friends naked or having sex, because then they might find themselves aroused–and we all know what that means."

Unfortunately for Strauss, whose heterosexuality is his very image, this implies a homosexual sentiment more than it reinforces masculinity. Personally, when this reviewer's friends share sexual escapades with him, he imagines himself as a participant – namely, the man in the story getting female attention. For Strauss to openly admit his pitfall of "finding himself aroused" by friend's sexual stories is astonishing – did he think we wouldn't read it or something?

This book is unusual for pickup artist material in that it is not really a manual for other wannabe artists. As one member of the community admits in his review, "The material is amazing but it will not help your game". So much of the literature connected with the seduction scene has been in temporary or limited formats – eBooks, emails, even printouts from member-only forums.

When The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists first appeared in "hardback" it looked more like a Bible than anything else – pages lined in gold, red cloth ribbon to mark your spot, soft faux leather cover – and though it is a very tangible piece of literature, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists resists being what it could have been. Had Strauss included some, even just a percentage of his seduction method material, this book really could have been a kind of Bible for pickup artists – a few lines of wisdom surrounded by a ton of experiential and proprietary information.

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists reflects more about the character of Neil Strauss than the nature or practice of picking up women.

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