{"id":76985,"date":"2015-10-14T17:48:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T01:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=76985"},"modified":"2015-10-14T17:48:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T01:48:28","slug":"slate-a-conversation-with-neil-strauss-i-look-back-on-the-game-and-cringe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=76985","title":{"rendered":"Slate: A Conversation With Neil Strauss: \u201cI look back on The Game and cringe.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/double_x\/doublex\/2015\/10\/neil_strauss_10_years_after_his_controversial_book_i_look_back_on_the_game.html\">By Christina Cauterucci<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/christinaCauterucci.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/christinaCauterucci-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"christinaCauterucci\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-76986\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/christinaCauterucci-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/christinaCauterucci.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Critics of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0060554738\/?tag=slatmaga-20\"><em>The Game<\/em><\/a> have waited a decade for Neil Strauss to issue a mea culpa. Plenty of readers saw his 2005 embedded investigation of the pickup-artist industry as an instruction manual on how to cajole beautiful women into bed. Strauss did, too: He seemed to morph from journalist to self-help guru, following up <em>The Game <\/em>with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Rules-Game-Neil-Strauss\/dp\/0061911690\/?tag=slatmaga-20\">step-by-step guide<\/a> to best practices from the &ldquo;seduction community&rdquo; and a fee-based <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stylelife.com\/\">coaching system<\/a> to teach eager men his sex-securing tricks, with regular &ldquo;field reports&rdquo; of each new notch on his bedpost.<\/p>\n<p>Now, as Strauss puts it on his website, &ldquo;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.stylelife.com\/phase2xl\/EnrollNow\/\">The Game has changed<\/a>.&rdquo; With a new book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/arts\/books\/2015\/10\/neil_strauss_the_truth_reviewed.html\"><em>The Truth<\/em><\/a>, and a new set of self-help materials, Strauss is re-branding himself as a relationship authority. After his infidelity almost cost him his then-girlfriend, now-wife Ingrid, he was compelled to face the demons that drove him to seek sexual novelty in place of true intimacy. This reckoning took him to a French orgy, a masked Las Vegas sex party, and a Tantric puja in Northern California, all described in graphic, field-report-worthy detail in his book.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Truth <\/em>also contains some real talk about the roots of Strauss&rsquo; insecurity and me-versus-them outlook on women. His father was an amputee fetishist (!), and his mother smothered him in what his therapist deems &ldquo;emotional incest&rdquo; (!!), leaving him with internalized trauma and a &ldquo;love avoidant&rdquo; disposition. By the end of the book, after lots of expert help, Strauss has rejected non-monogamy and convinced himself and Ingrid that he&rsquo;s kicked the pickup addiction for good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Christina Cauterucci: Critics of The Game have waited a decade for Neil Strauss to issue a mea culpa. Plenty of readers saw his 2005 embedded investigation of the pickup-artist industry as an instruction manual on how to cajole beautiful &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=76985\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[210,252],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dating","category-neil-strauss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76987,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76985\/revisions\/76987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}