If Machiavelli gives sound and universally applicable advice in Il Principe on how to aquire, increase and retain power by exploiting human weaknesses, I don't see why it shouldn't be equally possible, given a sufficiently high motivation to investigate the matter, to actually come up with pretty reliable and efficient tecniques to be successful in the much more mundane area of life that is dating. Considering the inherent comicality of the situation of human mating it is perfectly plausible to assume that the one who pushes the ridiculousness to the limit will, in fact, be also the one to attain the greatest success in this particular endeavour - just as in the amoral sphere of politics it is the extraordinarily ruthless actor who will be triumphant in the end. Thus, "pick-up artists" can only be said to be misogynistic in the same sense that Machiavellians can be said to be cynical or unscrupulous: their behaviour merely reflects the most expedient way to have the firmest possible grip on certain realities of life. In this sense, life itself is misogynistic or inhuman. This being said, Tea and padraig, why don't the two of you just piss off and start masturbating over the pictures of those bodybuilder type females you posted in the "Hot New Skool Babes" thread? You would love some good manhandling by those fine ladies, wouldn't you?