Neil Strauss Latest Update

So it seems that Neil Strauss of "The Game" fame is also busy reinventing himself. Hello Roosh, you got some competition in your quest to make "better" men to man-up for teh wimminz. I'm still curious about where you expect the worthwhile women for these men to come from.

As I've written before, PUA Is Broken. Nothing has changed my mind about that. In fact, if anything, the entire anti-MGTOW brouhaha just reinforces it: yanking out the feminist boilerplate shaming language shows the feminine-oriented mindset behind those who open their mouths and take a blast at the MGTOW. Dick In Pussy is still the end-all be-all validation that they seek.

So lets go see what Neil Strauss is up to, in his quest to "reinvent" himself. This is an interview in The Guardian:

While waiting for his drink, Strauss falls into conversation with a group that includes two middle-aged tourists and a young woman. The woman is in her 20s – tanned, blond, wearing denim short-shorts. Game-klaxon! I watch to see how Strauss will react to her, only he doesn’t. He chats with the tourists, about nothing much. Then he chats with her, about nothing much. And then he walks away.

“The old me would have been performing everything for her attraction,” Strauss says when we’re out of earshot. “Thinking of sex with her. Or how to lure her away from her boyfriend, what have you. Even in, like, a work meeting – if there was a woman in that meeting, everything I said was for her, to get her phone number afterwards.”

And now?

“I’m attracted to people, sometimes. But I think that part of my brain was trained for years. Constantly, wherever I went, whenever I walked into a room, these little lights would go on on a switchboard in my head.” The switchboard is still there, he says, only now anyone can illuminate it; anyone interesting. “I can relate to people on a human level.”

So it seems like he's gone from "robotic skirt-chaser" to "semi-aware human being". I'll provisionally accept that, with a kilo or two of healthy skepticism. So here we have the first time he went into rehab:

Around 2010, he met and fell in love with a Mexican-born model named Ingrid De La O. She was perfect, Strauss thought, their relationship together “the best I’d ever had”. Yet he found he couldn’t stop pursuing other women and cheating on Ingrid. When she learned about the cruellest of his infidelities (her best friend, a church car park), Ingrid agreed to forgive Strauss only on the condition he be treated for sex addiction. So he entered rehab for three months. Here his problems really began.

By opening up his psyche to trained therapists for the first time, Strauss learned he had quite an assortment of mental and emotional conditions. In short order, he was diagnosed with anxiety syndrome, depressive disorder, two forms of sexual disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. “It was like a hammer hitting me on the head,” he says. “I really thought I was normal.”

Hmm. No duh. So it looks like The Rawness was 100% accurate in his assessment of Neil Strauss and Mystery and PUAs in general. It's very interesting to know that. Let's now look at the second time he went into rehab (an excerpt from his book "The Truth"):

The day I went to sex therapy: an extract from The Truth, by Neil Strauss

"What are you here for?" the nurse asks me.

"Cheating."

She says nothing. I think about that word. It sounds lame. I’m in a hospital because I couldn’t say no. So I add the other reason I’m there: "And, I guess, to learn how to have a healthy relationship."

I think of Ingrid, whose heart I broke, whose friends threatened to kill me. The nurse looks up. It is the first time she’s made eye contact. She smiles sympathetically and continues looking through my intake folder. I ask if she thinks I’m really an addict. "I’m not an addiction specialist," she says. "But if you’re cheating on your relationship, if you’re visiting porn sites, or if you’re masturbating, that’s sex addiction."

She opens a drawer, removes a red square of paper, and writes my first name and last initial on it in black marker. Then she slips it into a small plastic sleeve and loops a long piece of white string through it. "You’re in red two," she says. "You’re required to wear your badge at all times."

"What does red two mean?"

"The tags are colour-coded. Red is for sex addicts. And the red two group is in therapy with Joan." She then picks up a large poster board from the floor and holds it on top of the desk, facing me. There are eight huge words on it: Joy, Pain, Love, Anger, Passion, Fear, Guilt, Shame.

"This is called a check-in," she says. "You’ll be required to check in four times a day and report which emotions you’re feeling. Which ones are you experiencing right now?"
I scan the display for crawling dread, for utter worthlessness, for total confusion, for intense regret, for rule-hating frustration. "Anger." She types it into my file. I am now officially institutionalised.

I feel another emotion coming on. "What’s the difference between guilt and shame?" I ask.

"Guilt is just about your behaviour. Shame is about who you are."

She leads me back to the reception desk, where I see a woman with her arm in a blue fibreglass cast being led out of a nursing station: another new arrival. She has pasty skin, blue-black hair, lots of piercings and the look of a vampire. I’m instantly attracted.

From the other direction, a woman with long blond hair pouring out of a pink baseball cap saunters to the reception desk. I think what I always think, what every man always thinks: what was puberty for if not to think these thoughts?

"What are you here for?" I ask the blonde. Her tag is blue. "Love addiction," she replies.

Perfect. I ask if she wants to get dinner.

Check-in emotion: guilt. Also, passion.

Well, well, well. Three holes in the ground.

She says nothing. I think about that word. It sounds lame. I’m in a hospital because I couldn’t say no. So I add the other reason I’m there: "And, I guess, to learn how to have a healthy relationship."

Weakness exposed. This is not any form of Alpha as espoused by the PUA section of the manosphere. This is someone amplifying and explaining - excusing! - himself. To a woman.

Nothing quite sells like public abasement of the famous, does it? Though maybe that's just my cynicism speaking. Still, it's a good start to rake in more $$$$. We'll leave it at that and see what happens - though admittedly it looks very much like Strauss has manned-up and swallowed the entire spectrum of mainstream "women can do no wrong" philosophy.
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Addendum:

"I’m not an addiction specialist," she says. "But if you’re cheating on your relationship, if you’re visiting porn sites, or if you’re masturbating, that’s sex addiction."

Now, I sincerely wonder if a professional nurse would say something like that. It's not her place to casually toss out such value-judgements. Leave it to the specialists.

However, if she had actually said that - it speaks volumes. Volumes to her sense of feeling entitled to pass on such value judgements. Especially when she's not a specialist in the area involved. She's merely throwing out a personal opinion, in a way potentially damaging to a patient.

Deeply unprofessional.

To dissect this more, reaching deep into the feminine-centric viewpoint which (this admittedly anecdotal nurse) exposes:

* if you're cheating on your relationship
* if you're visiting porn sites
* if you're masturbating

These three things are considered sex-addiction.

Why?

If you're cheating on your relationship, that's not a "sex addiction". That's just cheating on your relationship. The most that you could say is that it's morally reprehensible for both sexes, if you've effectively gotten married. (Ignoring the whole "Marriage 2.0 is no longer enforceable" and "it's okay for women to cheat but not men" blah blah that many of us in the manosphere know starkly.)

If you're visiting porn sites, that's not a "sex addiction". That's just being horny and wanting some mental stimulation. Again, the most that you could say is that it's morally reprehensible for both sexes. (Assuming that you buy in to the bushwah about "this is your brain, this is your brain on porn, any questions?" crapola going on out there.)

If you're masturbating, that's not a "sex addiction". That's just taking care of a momentarily-overwhelming physical urge. (The whole hookup culture is just mutual masturbation with another person's body.)

Take any or all to extremes? In conjunction? I would buy that. However, that was not mentioned. The impression is that it was merely thrown out as an "all of these things are automatically bad", whether individually and to whatever degree.

So why did this (anecdotal nurse) label these as "sex addiction"?

Might it be because they bypass anything involving the actual emotional and physical support of a woman?

And there's the feminine-centric outlook.

I might be really reaching - extrapolating way too far - yet I get the subtext from this little bit of writing of what this (anecdotal nurse) said: "(All men should be utterly sexless. (Except the ones who turn me on.))"

Are you willing to become someone's sexless slave?

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