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The context of the story is that he keeps buying drinks for women who flirt with him at nightclubs (e.g. one or another traveling singer) who then near the end
by jacobolus 9y ago
The context of the story is that he keeps buying drinks for women who flirt with him at nightclubs (e.g. one or another traveling singer) who then near the end of the night make some excuse why they can’t spend more time with him and leave.
He notices one of the women who made some excuse about a party that night has been talking with the MC frequently, and surmises correctly that they are married – turns out the woman wasn’t actually looking for romance and was just leading Feynman on to get free drinks out of him. The permanent singer at the club had been introducing women to him after first telling the women he was a big spender.
Feynman befriends the couple (singer and MC), and they talk about how plenty of rich men at the bar keep spending money on the girls there without getting anywhere romantically. The MC tries to teach Feynman about the social roles people take on at a bar. The key lesson is that a man who buys a woman a drink up front is unlikely to end up getting the one night stand he wants, but if he refuses to buy her anything, his chances will be better. Feynman tried it out by getting a girl to pay him back for a sandwich, and a few hours later she came by at the end of the night and invited him to her room, so the lesson apparently worked.
The “bitches” part is some kind of temporary psychological reprogramming he’s doing on himself for a day or two so that he can bring himself to objectify people against his usual inclination, so that he can try the experiment. It’s clear in context that he doesn’t think all women are “bitches”.
Feynman tried it one more time some while later on someone who wasn’t a traveling singer, flirting a bit with a girl but then asking if she would sleep with him before he would buy her a drink. She agreed.
His conclusion at the end is: “So it worked even with an ordinary girl! But no matter how effective the lesson was, I never really used it after that. I didn’t enjoy doing it that way. But it was interesting to know that things worked much differently from how I was brought up.”
Note: I’m not making any value judgments here, just recounting the story.
- aaron-lebo 9y agoThe summary is unnecessary, the entire story is in that post and includes stuff like: I stop suddenly and I say to her, “You… are worse than a WHORE!” It's probably better if people just read it.
- jacobolus 9y agoAgain, he spent one day amping himself up so that he could spend one evening play-acting as a misogynist jackass, including throwing this single (offensive but also somewhat jokey sounding) line at a woman after she suggested that he buy her a sandwich so they could eat together at her place, but then took the sandwiches he bought and was about to leave without him. She can’t have been that offended by the line, considering she came back a few hours later and invited him to her room. The point of the story is that misogynist jackasses can be successful at finding one-night stands a bar but he didn’t enjoy it, so he only ever tried it twice. Maybe you think that is damning evidence of some inherently irredeemable character flaw, but let he/she who hasn’t ever once spent an evening being an asshole (intentionally for an amateur sociology experiment or otherwise) cast the first stone.
- aaron-lebo 9y agoFeynman initially assumed that if a man bought drinks for a woman, she owed him sex. After these experiences, he assumed that if a man “disrespected” a woman by not buying her anything, she provided him with sex because she was stupid or masochistic. Sadly, in both these cases, he never considered the possibility that a woman’s sexual consent and worth should not be monetized in the first place.
- jacobolus 9y ago(a) Feynman never claims anyone owed him sex. All he said was that the men buying women drinks out of an unrealistic hope of getting a one-night stand out the other end were fools. (b) Feynman never said that not buying her something was “disrespectful” (though the MC did say that the man should (1) be disrespectful and also (2) not buy a woman anything up front). The “disrespectful” part was insulting someone or directly propositioning a stranger for sex in return for a drink. You are reading a whole lot more into the story about Feynman’s “assumptions” and “considerations” than is supportable by the text. Overall I would say your comment is considerably more condescending and offensive than the story. If you want to give Feynman crap about his other treatment of women throughout his life, so be it, but this story is pretty thin evidence for whatever case you’re trying to make.
- goialoq 9y agoFeyman was the original PUA.
- bryanrasmussen 9y agoIt sounds like whoever told him the buying drinks doesn't work theory was the original PUA, and then he tried it thought there was something to it but didn't care to continue?