Фото: Громадське радіо
We focus our attention on pickup. Talk about the boundary between flirting and aggressive sexual manipulations. In the studio there are Anna Boginska, the writer-analyst, author of the bestsellers
«To Live Life», «Sin Of Forgiveness» and the project «Pickup. Anti-poison»; Roman Melnychenko, the family psychotherapist, founder and leader of the Partnership Center «Persona»; Ornella Ostapenko, the big data designer.
Tetyana Troshchynska: Preparing for our talk show, we conducted a Facebook poll. We asked our Facebook audience the question: «Is it ok for you to have sex with someone without obligations?» 97 people took part in the poll. 40% (38% of women and 62% of men) said «yes» and agreed that sex is not a reason for acquaintance and relationship; 60% (58% of women and 42% of men) said «no» and consider sex only in the context of healthy relationships. From the poll, we noticed that there is a request for pickup. We also found out that women are more inclined to consider sex in the context of further or healthy relationships.
Anna Boginska: It’s normal, because the instincts do their job. On an unconscious level, sexual intercourse is the risk of pregnancy for a woman, and it is not so for men who are trying to pass their genes to everyone.
Roman Melnychenko: The biological program is very temporary, so in fact, men also seek long-term relationships.
Ornella Ostapenko: In addition, there is female socialization, when girls are taught from childhood that they are princesses, they should marry, they will all be happy, they will give birth to children. There is a certain myth, a certain program, and it is difficult to refuse it.
Vasyl Shandro: We have a brief audio-reference, so we and our listeners will get acquainted with the term «pickup»
(sound file)
Tetyana Troshchynska: Is it so? Who are pickup artists?
Ornella Ostapenko: Pickup artists are people who are interested in the speed seduction. It can be for one time (quick casual sex), it can be a story with relationships or even long relationships. The task of a pickup artist is to break the will of another person, to some extent hypnotize and act only in their own interests, to treat another person as an object.
Anna Boginska: My first novel «Living Life» was dedicated to different forms of professional pickup manipulations, I am the author of the project «Pickup. Anti-poison». I studied pickup schools, seduction communities for 3.5 years. Many people think that pickup is a children’s toy. Few people understand that pickup is a set of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) techniques, that aim to influence the opposite sex, to activate instincts with the help of NLP. Advanced pickup artists master also Ericksonian hypnosis. We do not fully understand the degree of a psychological trauma a professional pickup artist can cause in a girl. It is important to emphasize that pickup is not just a set of children’s tricks — look beautifully in the eyes and smile, pay her 5 compliments. Most schools teach something different. Pickup is like a hammer: you can build a house with a hammer, or you can break a head. It all depends on who has it in their hands.
Vasyl Shandro: According to the observations of the pickup trainer we talked to, there is a certain category of men who engage in pickup. Mostly psychologically immature men, say, a male-boy or a male-teenager. Mr. Roman, do you have the same observations?
Roman Melnychenko: If to take a percentage, then it’s really so. I worked with clients who visited pickup courses, they are not self-confident or have other problems. But among them there are others people who are aggressive, passionate and inclined to seduce, conquer and contribute to their «list of victories».
Anna Boginska: The question arises «Why do people come to pickup?» Where is that point when someone sits down and types in Google search «courses how to seduce a girl» or «how to seduce a man». I look at this and see that there are three categories of people who come to pickup.
The first category — young guys who do not know how to communicate with girls. Their worldview is OK. They come to learn how to get acquainted with girls. If their psyche is OK, there are no destructive programs and resentment towards women, these guys don’t stay in pickup. They need courses to quickly attract a girl. They quickly enter into a relationship and, as a rule, leave pickup.
The second category — people who come with a friend just for the company. They also usually do not stay for a long. They learn three techniques, actively use them, but for them this is not the main issue.
The third category — is the most terrible. These people come to pickup for two reasons. The first reason is to take revenge on a woman, because she hurt him. Often times he wants to make her come back and then abandon her. If it doesn’t work they go and start to take revenge on other women. The second reason is to learn how to professionally use seduction techniques in order to obtain the resources of women, in order to seduce successful women and use not only sex, but also many other of their resources.
Tetyana Troshchynska: Is there a female pickup?
Anna Boginska: Yes, of course.
Vasyl Shandro: What is it about? Are there the same motives?
Ornella Ostapenko: Almost the same. There are also several categories. There are those women who just want to learn how to get acquainted, and there are women who want to become a professional kept woman. But the methods differ. There is an aggressive pickup that is usually used at trainings for men, and there are trainings where women are taught to be mild, smile beautifully, sit nicely and wait in the right places.
Vasyl Shandro: Our team, Mariya Lebedeva and Eduard Skrypnyk, interviewed pickup trainers and their students. With the help of Facebook we looked for those who had the experience of communication and connections with pickup artists. Girls Ornella Ostapenko, Natalia Shevchuk and Anastasiya Melnychenko, pickup trainers Oleksandr «Monk» and Sergiy «Mars» responded. Our goal was to show «two sides of the same coin»— pickup artists and their attitude to what they do and those people who had experience of interaction with them. Let’s listen
(attached audio file)
Tetyana Troshchynska: What did you hear for yourself?
Anna Boginska: I want to say that there are a lot of people who really master pickup techniques and actively use them. I would even say that among them there are a lot of public people. They will never give you interviews on these topics. The true masters of pickup are usually behind the scenes. Those who teach pickup are a little bit different category of people. In fact, when you come to their seminars and listen to what they are discussing, it’s often about how to use hard NLP techniques. The goal is to quickly get a woman, use a woman and so on.
The guys expect to learn how to build relationships, but they find pickup trainings in the market
Roman Melnychenko: Excuses that were given are also manipulations. Most of guys, who come and bring most of the money, have conscience that does not allow them to use rude manipulations. The guys expect to learn how to build relationships, how to raise their self-esteem, learn the psychology of women and their psychology, but they find pickup trainings in the market. When they come and receive information about rude manipulations without justification, they leave. Thats why there are manipulations about the fact that a woman will feel good.
Tetyana Troshchynska: We’ve just gotten a call from a listener who said that such programs shouldn’t be aired for teenagers, for the whole Ukraine.
Ornella Ostapenko: Such programs should be done. What will you ask on the Internet? Because parents do not speak with their children, and there is no sexual education. You want to get
acquainted with someone. Probably you are a teenager, you have puberty period. What will you ask? You will ask how to seduce.
Tetyana Troshchynska: If they are looking for an alternative to pickup, what should it be?
Roman Melnechenko: It almost doesn’t exist.
Ornella Ostapenko: I’m working on it. That’s why I did a research on acquaintances. Yes, sex for one night with mutual respect and mutual consent is normal. It is necessary to teach that consent is very important. It is very important to reach agreement on all issues. When we talk about pickup, a lot of women say that this is traumatic experience for them. Sometimes it is important for teens to understand that the other side suffers from this. When they read about pickup or listen to some kind of training, there’s nothing there about the humanity of the other side.
Anna Boginska: When a boy or girl gets a hammer called a pickup, no coach can bare responsibility for how this hammer will be applied. But in fact, it’s like fighting against drugs. It is
impossible to fight against this, we must fight for freedom from this. Why do people become victims? The first and the main reason is ignorance, a lack of understanding of how to identify and
recognize pickup techniques. The second reason (the most important) — it seems to us that this is happening on another planet, that very few people master these techniques. In fact, today it takes 20 minutes to master these techniques. Two articles and three short YouTube videos is enough. The third reason why we become victims is the illusion that some sort of destructive characters, who want this, fall into the trap of a pickup artist. Among the victims there are a huge number of successful, intelligent women. NLP techniques press on our instincts, regardless of your education.
Vasyl Shandro: Who is inclined to be picked up? Is it wrong in this case to say that it is a relationship? That there are victims of pickup artists?
Anna Boginska: Everyone can become a victim. But how long will this last? It depends on a set of complexes a woman has. As a rule, women who have an inferiority complex and a «good girl»complex, get into long-term relationships with pickup artists because they couldn’t send them far away just after the first time they used some kind of techniques.
Ornella Ostapenko: Or the «mom» complex, when a woman believes that he will change.
Tetyana Troshchinska: And won’t he or she change?
Ornella Ostapenko: No.
Tetyana Troshchinska: What will change? We can see that there are people who are changing. Why do they change?
Ornella Ostapenko: A person can change if they want it, if they have inner motivation. It’s impossible to change a person from outside.
Tetyana Troshchinska: Pickup artists have a disclaimer — it’s not my responsibility if she could not recognize me.
Roman Melnychenko: Blaming a victim is a typical behavior of a perpetrator.
Anna Boginska: In pickup schools this is a very common story, they use it to cover their activity. A pickup artist says that every woman he looks into the eyes knows that he’s a hunter, but she goes for it, which means she’s ready to become a victim. If I take a hammer and hit someone on the head, it’s my responsibility.
Tetyana Troshchinska: We conducted an Internet survey. 287 people (228 women and 59 men) took part in it. The survey was about dependencies, the ability to love and feel yourself happy on
our own. 77% of respondents noted the signs of emotional dependency in themselves. 38% said that they build relationships without violence. 62% noted the manifestations of violence in their relationships, mostly psychological violence such as humiliation, criticism, causing psychological pain, manipulations. 167 people (58%) said that they were not sure that they deserve love and safe relationships without violence.
Ornella Ostapenko: This is one of the tools used by pickup artists. When you have a relationship with a pickup artist longer than for one night, it’s likely that he will convince you that you are not ideal and he does you a favor staying in the relationship with you. If you lost weight, changed the color of hair, you would be an ideal woman.
Vasyl Shandro: And if he frankly says that it is for one night?
Ornella Ostapenko: He is not a pickup artist, it’s an honest sex-positive person who says that we can interact this way for a common pleasure. This is normal.
Anna Boginska: When we use NLP techniques, it’s a sort of theft. When we agreed that I would give you this, and you would give me that, it’s not a manipulation or pickup, it’s an arrangement.
Roman Melnychenko: A tendency to destructive or co-dependent relationships is a part of the fact that the society does almost nothing in the sphere of building relationships. We are not taught this.
We have no idea of a healthy relationship. When you do not know what a healthy relationship should be, it is very easy to become a victim not only of a pickup artist.
Tetyana Troshchinska: Can we somehow show the markers that people can notice in their relationship?
Anna Boginska: We are looking for unusual guys, unusual girls. When we talk about how to identify a pickup artist, the first thing is a «perfect prince». When you meet an «alpha male», he,
according to your inner criteria, is an «ideal prince», so smart, talented, interesting, extraordinary, he looks into your eyes, you have such a point of convergence, it seems to you that this is the man of your life in 15 minutes, this the moment when you need to immediately stop and think, for the only ideal thing in this world is a mask. There are no ideal people.
It seems to you that this is the man of your life in 15 minutes, this the moment when you need to immediately stop and think, for the only ideal thing in this world is a mask
Roman Melnychenko: One of the signs of a pickup artist is a large number of manipulations used to destroy woman’s self-worth, self-esteem, personal boundaries. We have an immanent sense of vitality — the integrity of the body and emotions. Usually, somewhere on the outskirts, we feel that the boundaries are violated.
Tetyana Troshchinska: It’s important to talk about your own borders and feeling of happiness.
Ornella Ostapenko: I studied it myself, because it was interesting. For me, the violation of borders was always traumatic. I have many friends who suffered from this and many friends who said: «And what are the alternatives?» We talk a lot about how we should not do. I decided to make statistics. Together with my partner I did a research. Three thousand people took part in it, it was progressive youth. Now we have the first results. We asked about the distance that is comfortable when you get aquatinted. There is a difference between women and men who we interviewed. The distance within arms reach was chosen as the most comfortable, both for women and for men.
One of the signs of a pickup artist is a large number of manipulations used to destroy woman’s self-esteem and personal boundaries
According to our research, men have shorter comfort distance. Those people who did not have dating experience, namely men, often considered it positive if someone came close to them, kissed, touched their genitals, they had some sort of fantasy, they do not understand the boundaries between harassment and acquaintance. But there is a big request for how to interact in a healthy way. Few think that they can offer sex and people will agree.
Anna Boginska: It is very important to learn to listen to and hear yourself. Every time we meet a person who masters a set of techniques, we always feel it. Inside of us there is an adrenaline
discharge. Learn how your adrenaline reacts, and you will be safe.
Roman Melnychenko: We need to trust the instincts a little more and not chase after a wrapper.
Listen to the full version of the talk show in the attached audio file.