NEL In 2005, Neil Strauss released his book titled The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pick-Up Artists. In this autobiographical work, Strauss recounts his experience in what has come to be called the “seduction commu- nity,” a community of heterosexual men who discuss and practise techniques for approaching and talking to women, acquiring women’s phone numbers, and enticing women to have sex with them. Although the seduction community attracts men from a variety of dif- ferent lifestyles, it often appeals to men who lack ade- quate social skills when speaking to women. As Strauss puts it, “If drug addicts go to rehab . . . then social retards go to pickup school” (2005:16). Here, “pickup school” refers to attending seminars, workshops and bootcamps taught by pickup “gurus.” For a price, a guru will mentor a student and accompany him out onto the “field” (pubs, nightclubs, college campuses, etc.), acting as a “wingman.” A wingman’s job is to help the pickup artist (PUA) attain his “target”—the woman he wants to pick up. In a typical scenario, as the wingman distracts the target’s friends, the PUA will approach the target and use a memorized “opener” to start a conversation. An opener is different from a pickup line. In the seduction community, pickup lines are never used because they never work. The problem with a pickup line is that it makes it obvious that the man is trying to pick up the woman. An opener is meant to achieve the opposite effect: It makes the woman believe that the man is not trying to pick her up. For example, the opening phrase “I need a woman’s opinion” on something provides the woman with an acceptable reason for why the man is talking to her. If the opener succeeds, the PUA can then proceed to use a variety of “scripted routines” on the woman, such as rehearsing a funny story, using “negs” (playful insults), performing sensual magic tricks (like palm reading), and so on. Above all, these routines must conceal the man’s seductive motives. In the words of pickup guru Mystery, “There must be a sense that this interaction is real and genuine” (Strauss, 2005:160). These scripted routines, when used correctly, imbue pickup artists with various forms of what we might call seductive capital. Embodied forms of capital—economic capital (e.g., money), cultural capital (e.g., intellect and style), social capital (e.g., “who you know”), and symbolic capital (e.g., reputation)—can be replicated by seductive capital through the use of varying seductive techniques. Outside the field of seduction, however, these forms of seductive capital dissolve. For example, a pickup artist might use strategies that present him as an “alpha male,” a leader of men, a possessor of social/symbolic capital. A woman who sees this man might believe that his capital is transferable, that the man is alpha in other fields as well—in his career, in bed, etc. Yet, in social reality, this man might be a jobless “geek” who spends most of his time reading and posting about pickups online. Because this sort of capital is not real or gen- uine, it cannot sustain itself apart from the field. To put it simply, the seductive capital possessed by an individual one night will usually not transfer over to the next; it has to be re-replicated all over again. The fleeting nature of seductive capital acts like a drug. Pickup artists become addicted to possessing capital that they could not other- wise attain. In turn, men become “hooked” to seduction like a drug addict is hooked to a drug. In this sense, men do not only “hook up” with women, but hook up to the mechanism of seduction itself, the addictive pursuit of seductive capital in its many forms. Sources: Andrew Brown, The Sphere of Seduction: How One-Dimensional Seduction Emerges from the Two-Dimensional Screen , unpublished bachelor’s thesis, University of British Columbia; Neil Strauss, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Hooking Up In/To the Seduction Community BOX 12.4