I have barely started, I’m only a few pages in, but even just reading the content page, most of the sections described are either mysoginistic or toxic. Like the first type of person is an oppressed man cause he as to be responsible and rational and his choice of woman is the siren, someone who is a sexual fantasy and will please him and let him release his stress with her.
During the actual seduction process, one of the steps to not be nice, to be kind and then take it back, instigate a breakup and make the partner feel insecure so then when you are nice, the highs are higher.
That is an abusive relationship. Most of the tidbits about the steps explain an abusive relationship and it’s claiming to be seduction.
I got this book for free and so I planned to read it from a psychological pov rather than learn to seduce people. I’m a social work major with a discipline in psych so I’m very fascinated by that and am getting more into books dealing with psychology or books like this wherre you are able to look at it from that pov and apply psychology to it. So I’ll still read it, but more to understand a toxic mans brain and how they think.
If I’m wrong and it actually isn’t mysoginistic at all, please lmk, however I have seen some reviews agreeing with me.
by [deleted]
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So basically it’s “the game” all over again.
I stumbled upon that book and put it back because of that. Books like that are often very manipulative (to both sexes… in your example the man is degraded to an animal that needs to lust over a siren to have his needs met). It’s hard to find a good book about that.
I think Esther Perel talks about eroticism in a much more sensible way that seems to encapsulate what humans need. Maybe you want to look into her work 🙂
To be fair, it is total drivel.
>I got this book for free and so I planned to read it from a psychological pov rather than learn to seduce people.
You don’t need to lie buddy, this is a safe space. /s
Nah, but seriously, I imagine the only psychology insight you will get from this is of how much of a fucking asshole the author is.
Of course it’s misogynistic, it’s a fucking pick-up book. What on earth were you even expecting?
Calling this an abusive relationship is like calling words violence. There are literal abusive relationships and this is not that.
From looking it up for this I’m not so sure it seems misogynistic rather than just being batshit insane and not understanding how humans work by a self obsessed arse who doesn’t see anyone (rather than just women) but themselves as anything other than an object .
Agreed. That book is total garbage. I always felt gross having it in my store when I was a bookseller. I very rarely judged customers on what they bought, but that’s one that caused some side-eye.
With this book, the author, Robert Greene, is trying to describe how things are, not necessarily how they should be. Whether or not he has succeeded in accurately capturing how things are is a whole separate argument. But surely when describing how things are, you will acknowledge that there are unsavory people in the world and sometimes these unsavory people are successful. This book tries to examine why.
The book does not just focus on unsavory people. Greene describes many different archetypes, some for men, some for women and some for both. He is offering what could be taken as advice for both men and women at different points in the book. Some of the women are the standard sex kitten type, but he talks about unconventional women too. I don’t think you could think it is “misogynistic” unless you are one of these people who see misogyny everywhere.
There are parts that might be considered toxic but I don’t think the toxicity is the point. He is trying to describe what is. Take what is of use to you; leave what is not. That’s the whole point of describing many different archetypes. You can’t embody all of these archetypes; some necessarily exclude others.
I have heard Greene say in interviews that his books are not necessarily telling you to be the way the books describe, but are allowing you to identify these personality types in order to better defend yourself. I like Robert Greene. He seems like a thoroughly decent chap. But I think he is fudging a bit here in saying that his books are intended just for self-defense. The Art of Seduction was his second book, following on the 48 Laws of Power. He wasn’t yet thoroughly established as an author. So I think he was sometimes intentionally provocative to draw attention. For example, in Seduction, he frquently refers to the object of one’s seductive attention as the “victim”. That’s cringy. If he was to do it over, I don’t think he would phrase everything exactly the same.
Although I could glean a few useful tips from the book, I thought it was more interesting for its historical anecdotes than as a how-to manual. Despite its claim of timeless principles, because it focuses mostly on prior historical eras, a lot of the would-be tips are simply too flowery and too corny to have practical application in the present day.
Some of the comments compare The Art of Seduction to The Game. They are actually very different books. About the only thing they have in common is that some percentage of the public label them as misogynistic. The Game is not a how-to manual. The Game is a profile piece about the lives of some guys within this particular subculture. Some techniques are described incidental to that, but the techniques are not the focus. The technique books followed after that.
Do the new editions have colored headers like The 48 Laws of Power?