Street Harassment vs. Approaching Women

Recently there’s been a youtube video going viral where a woman is walking through NYC. She was wearing very normal clothes that wouldn’t be considered attention-grabbing or anything like that. Over a period of 10 hours walking through the city, more than 100 men tried to solicit her attention or, as some PUAs would call it, “approaching.”

It’s easy for many of us guys to react with thoughts such as, “What are women complaining about? I would LOVE it if women gave me that kind of attention all day!” or “If guys can’t do this sort of thing, how are we supposed to meet women?”

And then there are the shy guys who turn to the PUA community because they’re clueless about how to talk to women. They’re absolutely frightened about getting rejected. They see a video like this, learn that “street harassment” is supposedly a terrible thing, and get even more discouraged than they already are about meeting women. Seeing women complain about street harassment just makes life a little more hopeless for them.

These men know that they SHOULD be talking to more women, but the concept of street harassment makes them feel guilty about the very idea of wanting to talk to more women. Yeah, it sucks.

However, it is our duty and responsibility as pickup artists to always take women’s feelings into consideration. We’re here to bridge a gap, after all, not widen it. I and probably other visionaries from our community such as Zan Perrion imagine a better world where men and women are on the same page and openly love one another without patriarchal constraints. A small step toward that would be an open discussion about street harassment amongst us pickup artists.

In our community, we heavily encourage what’s called “cold approaching.” It’s the most direct and straightforward way to meet women. See an attractive woman? Just go approach her. Say anything. Introduce yourself. There’s your standard cold approach. Do this enough times and you won’t feel as much approach anxiety, right?

At first you may be awkward. Visibly nervous. The woman might be laughing at you on the inside. Doesn’t matter. Push through and keep approaching until you get the hang of it and become more confident.

What could the women be thinking, though?

Male Reddit user “HateSoup” gives us some perspective:

Sometimes I’ll be downtown with a group of friends and we all go to the gay bar so they can dance. It’s usually just fine and a lot of fun but there are times when there’s that creepy guy who wants to talk to me long after I told him I’m straight and just here with friends. You get some leering too. Sure, I’m not necessarily in any danger or anything, but it just makes you feel differently. You can see the gears turning in their heads and you are the object. I can’t say it’s pleasant. Some of these dudes are big, too. Times like that I always think, if this is what women feel like all the time it really depresses me.

Sure, HateSoup isn’t gay and therefore he is physically unable to feel sexual attraction to the men hitting on him. Therefore the analogy isn’t perfect. However, the feeling of not wanting to be talked to is universal. Have you ever gone out to buy some groceries and just wanted to keep to yourself? As an introvert, I actually feel this way pretty often. Women feel this way sometimes, too. However, since they are women, they’ll often get men soliciting their attention a lot of the times they go out, even if they just want to be left alone.

Do you know what it’s like to be approached over and over again when you just want to be left alone? You don’t. I don’t. We’re dudes. We can’t possibly know what it’s really like. But women go through this kind of shit really often.

Being able to enjoy something because you belong to a more fortunate group of people while not fully being able to understand what it’s like for a less fortunate group of people is called privilege. I understand white privilege because I’m a racial minority and I saw white people getting so many benefits I didn’t get while growing up in the US. So I also understand male privilege. One of the many privileges we get as men is being able to go to any public place in the world without much fear of being judged, objectified, harassed, attacked, kidnapped, raped, etc. Women are “easier targets.”

Women deserve to live in a world where they feel just as safe as men do.

The woman in the video clearly didn’t feel so safe when that dude was silently following her for 5 minutes straight. She was ignoring him, clearly uninterested in him, yet he kept following her.

It’s obvious that that sort of shit has got to stop, but what about the friendly hellos and good mornings? What about the friendly compliments?

Someone (anonymous) tells her perspective on the matter:

Many comments here say that this girl was not harassed, but here’s the thing… you should be able to walk around in public and keep to yourself. While many of the comments seem relatively harmless on the surface, a good plenty of them were made with the intention to draw her into more (unwanted) conversation…If she has no interest in having a conversation with any of the men that approached her, then she has that right and doesn’t owe any of them an explanation as to why!

Secondly, I didn’t see any women approaching her or saying hi… so either guys are more friendly and talkative than girls or there was a common ulterior motive among the men who approached her.

So while so many of you want to defend the words, looks, and actions directed at her in this video, not a single one of them were wanted or welcome.

Also, female Reddit user “Zireff” tells her point of view:

I shouldn’t have to be objectified and dehumanized on my way to class, especially under a thin and poorly veiled attempt at a ‘compliment’. You don’t get to act the victim when I get upset, we both know where the source of that ‘compliment’ lies. It’s not my job to entertain your fantasies.

We need to stop all the harassment and unwanted objectification, but how can we achieve that while still making sure we keep approaching interested women so that we can actually establish new connections that lead to happy romantic and sexual relationships?

I believe it’s all about (1) your mental positioning and (2) creating the right context.

Your Mental Positioning

Your state of mind and the web of beliefs that you hold (Inner Game) leaks out and is reflected in your behavior (Outer Game), even if it’s consciously undetectable. Your state of Inner Game is unconsciously detectable through feeling and intuition.

If you’re an objectifying misogynist desperate to repair your ego through vaginal conquests with no compassion for the person you’re trying to stick your penis into, you’re going to give women the creeps, even if you’re not doing anything out of the ordinary.

However, if you actually see women as human beings who deserve the same respect and consideration as you do while trying to be on the same page with them, women will generally be more comfortable with you approaching them, even if you’re overtly sexual.

Therefore, if you fall into the former category, you need to step up and evolve toward something more human. You need to change your mental positioning, meaning that you need to start thinking about the needs and desires of women instead of just thinking about your own needs and desires. We’re all in this together. We’re all suffering. It’s not just you. In fact, women have it a lot worse than you in many, many ways. Take that into consideration once in a while and develop some compassion.

I’m willing to bet that some of the guys who talked to the woman in the video were actually cool. The video they produced at the end was likely showcasing only the worst examples. Cold approaching can still be OK if you’re coming from the right place mentally. However, you should also create a context where you’re not harassing her.

Creating the Right Context

Seduction and pickup is all about creating the right context. Even in the old days when the Mystery Method reigned as PUA dogma thanks to “The Game” by Neil Strauss, PUAs were creating unimposing contexts to approach women with “opinion openers” and “false time constraints.”

They crafted the situation so that women felt like they were just there for a quick moment to get a female opinion on some made-up bullshit.

That may be a good example of creating a certain context so that women might feel more comfortable with you approaching them, but it’s dishonest. And dishonesty is not cool. You absolutely never have to lie to women in order to establish romantic or sexual relationships with them.

Aside from working with whatever context the environment and current situation give you, you should create a pressure-free context that you’re not there to try to get anything from her. Even if you want to have sex with her, you shouldn’t see having sex with a woman as taking anything from her in any way. If you believe that a woman having casual sex has no different implications from a man having casual sex, you’re going to feel more relaxed (less desperate) about it all and she’s more likely to feel that you’re not some creep. Feminism is extremely fucking useful, bros.

It’s also very useful to create a context where your approach isn’t entirely unsolicited. That’s where various other tools in the pickup artist’s toolbox comes into play such as Social Momentum, Forcing IOIs, Flash Game, and basic secondary communication like exchanging eye contact and a smile before walking up to her.

Well that’s all I have to say on the matter for now, but I hope this opens up more discussion about this sort of thing amongst you guys.

Don’t be a dick.

Michael Chief