This community exists through various channels, including internet newsletters, blogs, seminars and one-on-one coaching, forums, groups, and local clubs known as "lairs".
[1] The rise of "seduction science", "game",[2] or "studied charisma" has been attributed to modern forms of dating and social norms between sexes which have developed from a perceived increase in the equality of women in Western society and changes to traditional gender roles.
[5] Ross Jeffries taught workshops, promoted a collection of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) techniques called "speed seduction", and in 1991 published How to Get the Women You Desire into Bed.
[11] The community was brought to greater mainstream awareness with the 1999 film Magnolia, in which Tom Cruise portrayed a charismatic yet emotionally troubled pickup guru who was loosely modeled on Jeffries.
The former pickup artist Roosh V, who has since recanted aspects of his past and converted to Oriental Orthodox Christianity, had self-published 14 books describing techniques for seducing women.
[18] The culture surrounding pickup has spawned an entire industry servicing those who want to improve their social and seduction skills with consultations and in-field training.
[22] The Jeffries version of pickup is based on neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), a theory that claims the existence of a connection between neurological processes, language, and behavioral patterns learned through experience.
[25] Strauss claims that NLP was quickly rendered obsolete by the rise of techniques based on social dynamics, such as those employed in attraction-comfort-seduction progressions.
[22] Negging is one of Erik von Markovik's most infamous techniques, and has been described as the practice of giving a woman a backhanded compliment to weaken her confidence and thereby render her more vulnerable to seduction.
[41][42][43] Feminist BDSM writer and activist Clarisse Thorn, author of Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser: Long Interviews with Hideous Men, criticizes the PUA community as frequently "absurd and sexist" and "pushy and problematic", saying that it encourages adversarial gender roles.
[44] The UCLA Center for the Study of Women argues that PUA culture is misogynistic, and exists on a continuum of sexist behaviours and attitudes that includes rape and murder.
[45] Pickup artists have received mixed to negative responses from the press and general public, with many regarding both the practice and theory as immoral, sexist, and ineffective.
[citation needed] In 2014, following widely supported public petitions, US-based PUA speaker and instructor Julien Blanc was denied entry to both the United Kingdom and Australia after he published YouTube videos explaining and demonstrating behaviors such as grabbing women by the throat and forcing their heads toward his crotch.
The article quotes the webmaster of confidentup.com defending the community: "It's no more deceptive than push-up bras or heels or going to the gym to work out...This isn't just a game of words and seduction, it's an overall life improvement.
"[49] Strauss says, "I really think all of these routines and manipulations are just a way for a guy to get his foot in the door so that if a woman connects with him, she can still choose him" and that pickup techniques "can be used for good or evil".
But after she met more, including two from San Francisco, she wrote a letter to the Village Voice defending them, in response to the paper’s negative article on the subject in March.
He became concerned about the ethics of an institutionally taught skill of seduction, practicing pick-up lines, acting genuine and unguarded, and gently persuading a stranger toward having sex.
"[54] An academic paper on the community, published in 2012 by Eric C. Hendriks in the journal Cultural Analysis, details the value system guiding successful pickup artists based on an international study including participant observation of boot camp and "lair" meetings in Germany.
The article argues that the values of successful practitioners of the "Venusian arts" are informed by an intertwining of "hedonistic goals and diffused forms of innerworldly asceticism".